As many of you may know, I am head over heels in love with CMJ’s fellow Bay area-based organization Forward Together and the Strong Families movement. One core message that comes out of their reproductive justice framework is that more than 3 out of 4 U.S. households are not heterosexual married couples with biological kids, and they’ve given this message life through various projects, one of my favorites being their Mama’s Day Our Way e-card campaign.

“Facts take on their meaning by being embedded in frames, which render them relevant and significant or irrelevant and trivial….To be conscious of framing strategy is not manipulative. It is a necessary part of giving coherent meaning to what is happening in the world, and one can either do it unconsciously or with deliberation and conscious thought,” explain Charlotte Ryan and William A. Gamson in “The Art of Reframing Political Debates.”

The success of the Strong Families frame lies not only in is its powerful (re)construction of the family frame and the significance and dignity it gives to the experiences of the vast majority of families in the U.S., but also in its use of collective action framing. The three (participatory communications) steps in collective action framing are to:

• Map the power relations that shape structural inequalities in a given social and historical context;
• Involve the communities directly affected by those structural inequalities to bring about change–also known as collective action; and
• Praxis (repeating cycle of analysis, action and reflection).

I had the pleasure of interviewing Shanelle Matthews, Communications Manager at Forward Together about the organization, the Strong Families movement and the amazing communications work they do to reframe and engage communities around reproductive justice. Get the scoop on some of their practices below and check out the Center for Media Justice Toolbox for help on framing and messaging.

CMJ: How did the Strong Families frame come about and how do you think it allows for the inclusion of LGBT folks, men, and other allies in a way that the reproductive rights frame, often considered as being a “women’s issue,” has not?

FT/SF: There was a landscape among reproductive justice organizations working towards shared goals but working disparately and across geography. Strong Families uses a movement-building model that builds on our collective work but allows for an echo chamber that increases our impact across geography.

There’s a longstanding narrative that there are deserving families, or “bad” families and “good families”. Strong Families aims to shift the way people think about families and deconstruct the existing narratives of what families look like that has been pervasive for over a century. As a frame, Strong Families values the right to parent, not parent and to parent the children you have with dignity. Reproductive justice, which intersects with economic and racial justice, is distinct from the narrower reproductive rights or health frames because it’s inclusive of the full spectrum of our lives, including the lives of LGBT people and male allies. We work with male allies through organizations like the Brown Boi Project who are re-envisioning the power imbalance between traditional notions of masculinity and femininity. This is also true of organizations like Men Against Rape and Men Stopping Violence that work within the reproductive justice framework toward the same goal.

CMJ: What are the conditions that you are trying to change both in public debate and public policy?

FT/SJ: The political landscape around reproductive rights has devolved into single-issue fights around abortion or parenting rights and the broader context gets lost. 3 out of 4 families in the U.S. don’t identify as two-parent, heterosexual families with biological children, and yet, federal and state policies don’t reflect that reality. For example, on a federal level, we’re working on Strong Families analyses around immigration policies and LGBT/second-parent adoption policies that are punitive for so-called “non-traditional” families and children. We are also engaged in policy fights on a state-by-state basis as well. In New Mexico we’re working on getting access to maternity leave for pregnant and parenting teens. Our bottom line is wherever you come from and whatever you look like, you deserve the right to care for your family. And federal and state policies should reflect that.

CMJ: Forward Together recently changed its name from Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice. Can you talk about that shift?

FT/SJ: Forward Together as an institution has been around for almost 25 years and underwent 3 name changes during that time. It’s important to us to grow and expand with the political climate so that our constituency knows what we’re doing and who we are. Reproductive justice is fundamentally tied to social, economic and racial justice, and requires the vision to connect them all. Historically, Forward Together has been an organization that served primarily Asian and Asian-America communities, but we are intentionally building a multiracial movement that connects different sectors based on our shared interests so that all families can thrive, and we want that to be reflected in our identity. We care very much for the communities we’ve served for the last 25 years and maintain programming for our communities. Our Forward for Youth program organizes and educates Oakland Asian Pacific Islander youth on reproductive justice and sex education within a multiracial framework that strives to be inclusive of all communities.

CMJ: How is Strong Families a participatory frame? How is does it differ from more mainstream national organizations?

FT/SF: National reproductive rights organizations have recently embarked on a new messaging strategy. Planned Parenthood recently denounced the term pro-choice, which no longer resonates with their constituency. In our experience, we’ve found that neither reproductive justice nor pro-choice, as a message, resonates with our communities. Although we advance our work using reproductive justice analysis and strategies, we utilize Strong Families messaging framework, which describes access to birth control and abortion care as one aspect of the rights, resources and recognition that every family needs to thrive. The Strong Families frame resonates a wide and inclusive swath of our communities as well as many elected decision-makers.

Our tagline is “All families matter.” Antithetically, there are people out there who would have us believe that only “some people matter,” and that only married, heterosexual families without disabilities and with biological children are the core constituency we need to care about. We’re confident that anyone who equally values the dignity of all families will embrace the Strong Families frame. Our frame also makes the case that you can’t fight for economic, immigrant, environmental, media, gender or any other kind of justice without fighting for strong families, they are entirely intersectional. This forges the intersection between the collective work of Strong Families organizations

We aren’t asking organizations to do new work; rather, we’re engaging people where they’re at. We use a movement building model that elevates how reproductive justice shows up as an everyday issue for all our communities; however, because reproductive justice as a framework is sometimes difficult to communicate and understand, we also use the Strong Families framework to engage people. Family resonates with everyone.

CMJ: How do you feel Strong Families compares to other national movements?

Strong Families isn’t all that different when you look at national initiatives who we work in conjunction with, like the National Domestic Workers Alliance  we all want to be able to care for ourselves and our families. A movement isn’t birthed by one organization. It takes multiple organizations, communities, and structures moving together as one in our respective homes and communities. Strong Families helps to make our constituencies’ families stronger.

CMJ: What are some of the communications tactics Strong Families uses to educate and engage people in the reproductive justice frame?

FT/SF: We employ a culture shift strategy and work closely with artists from across the country to represent the likenesses and needs of our families. For example, the Mama’s Day e-cardsshifts the way people view mothers. By honing in on one significant, mainstream holiday, it makes it easier for some audiences to understand the Strong Families and reproductive justice

frame. Showing images of some of our most impacted mothers, mothers who have died to get their families safely across the border, mothers living with disabilities, illustrates that Mother’s Day isn’t just for an upper echelon of mothers. It’s an important day to acknowledge and honor all mamas.

We hope to provide a model for other movement organizations to adopt of how to work with cultural workers in a healthy, non-transactional way that lifts up their autonomy. That is one of the best parts of the Strong Families initiative–being able to tap into local art and culture. Another is building on the work that local groups are already doing and working with their constituencies who are the experts on their experiences. The messages and campaigns we develop lead with the stories of the most impacted people–we talk with the community to hear about their experiences and frame around their stories. Through our youth program, youth work directly with our youth organizing team to develop the program’s curriculum. They inform us on what kind of sex education they need and what they’re not learning about, and we employ curriculum and strategies developed specifically from those needs.

CMJ: What is your social media distribution and how do you measure success?

FT/SF: We believe that if we’ve changed one person’s view of motherhood we’ve been successful. A lot of organizations are trying to figure out what measuring success means right now. The way we organize online is very different from how we experience organizing in the real world. In online campaigns, we often look to blog comments, Facebook message or our news feed to see how people are responding. If the comments are not positive, we restrategize. One important question is if our audience is already with us, how do we know if a shift is happening? It’s about meeting people exactly where they are. If their desire is to understand what the Strong Families’ end game is, do we have the time and the tools to talk to and engage with them on that level? If people get it but are not ready to share, how do we move our message? Measuring success is done on a case-by-case basis, and we will keep at it until every family has the rights, recognition, and resources they need to thrive.

CMJ: What have some of the impacts of Strong Families been?

FT/SF: While we are moving humbly through our work and not making assumptions, we feel we have definitely made an impact. Strong Families is in its third year, and over 80 organizations and an estimated 10,000 individuals have joined us. People seem to understand why Strong Families and reproductive justice are important, they’re sharing information with their families and friends, growing their desire to support the work and volunteer.

Since Strong Families’ Mama’s Day campaign, I’ve met with very emotional people at every place I’ve traveled to, who told me that it was the first time they’ve been able to send a card to their mothers, because they’ve never had the opportunity to engage with their mothers emotionally without anything “that was for us.” We found a home for impacted moms to engage online around the Mother’s Day holiday.

In Oakland, youth in our program conducted participatory action research on sex education in each school district. They found that all youth were not receiving mandated comprehensive sex education, but queer youth and youth with disabilities were not receiving any at all. The youth are now meeting school board members to communicate how vital and important it is for young people in Oakland to be in a deeper, more engaged conversation about sex, their bodies and their health. In New Mexico, we’re working with ally organizations like Young Women United and the Media Literacy Project to make the invisible visible and engage New Mexican families. The impact of our work is realized through the communities we touch, our goal is to make sure we continue to use the best tools and strategies available to us to make the biggest impact.

Memes like this one were also created and shared out on Twitter and other social media platforms:

Twitter is a useful tool to take the pulse of your social network on current events and your issues, as well as leverage the social media influence of your community. A Twitter strategy can be a game changer for many organizations and campaigns and can build your credibility, establish your voice and connect you to your members, potential donors, allies, partners, and even organizing targets. One specific features of Twitter is “lists” by which you can organize Twitter users—like journalists—into private or public lists.

Your first task in using Twitter to engage journalists is to identify who’s reporting on issues or geographical areas relevant to your work. You can use free websites like MuckRack.com to search a database of over 10,000 newspaper, magazine, blog, web, TV and radio journalists by their Twitter handles. MuckRack also allows you to subscribe to live Twitter media lists that are automatically updated and has a Twitter monitoring service. If you have access to a media database like Cision or Vocus (or are a CMJ client who asks for press lists), many journalists list their Twitter handles there, as well as on the contact page of their outlets’ websites.  One study found that more than half (55 percent) of journalists use social channels such as Twitter and Facebook to find stories from known sources, and 43 percent verified existing stories using these tools.  Here are some examples of how different journalists are using Twitter to engage with their communities.

As with any—and I repeat, any—successful use of Twitter, you have got to listen and engage. Twitter is a two-way endeavor and requires you to get to know the people you’re following and converse with them, whether through retweets, mentions, or replies. Learn what the journalists you’re interested in use Twitter for, who they are mentioning and talking about, how often they’re on, etc. What outlets do they like? What blogs do they read? Who do they talk to on Twitter? What do they care about?

On your end, you can try to get on their radar by retweeting their updates, sharing out and thanking them for articles, asking your followers to talk about a recent article by the journalist, or by tweeting stats and potential newshooks directly to them.

While many journalists don’t respond to random direct messages or mentions—particularly from people they don’t’ know—they do use Twitter for leads, story ideas, even breaking news—or to share out their own work. Try to find ways to be useful to them! Ask them questions! Don’t be annoying! You can also find ways to participate by identifying and joining Twitter conversations hosted by news outlets, organizations, or campaigns. It seems like a lot of work, I know, but if you are able to successfully build a relationship with just one journalist through Twitter, that is a tremendous gain for you, your organization and your work.

We have a CMJ communications clinic on “Social Media Strategies for Social Justice” coming up in March – we’ll keep you updated on that and other opportunities out there to learn more about how to use Twitter to your advantage.  And don’t forget to check out CMJ’s free Twitter primer for the novices among you.

Tweet on!

We are all too familiar, however, with the low rate of return on press conferences. From securing space; lining up and prepping spokespeople; sending out a media advisory; pitching to reporters; rallying members to show up; taking time off from work to attend; ensuring powerful visuals; creating press kits; conducting follow up calls; monitoring media coverage after the event—and all the other components of pulling a press conference off—we know the process is time consuming and labor intensive. After all that work, maybe there will be one or two mentions in a newspaper or blog, maybe none at all, particularly if you haven’t been able to develop relationships to the journalists or outlets that are key to your issue.

The primary function of press conferences is to provide compelling visuals to the media, whether it be hundreds of people wearing bright orange jumpsuits to protest Guantanamo in front of the White House or 200 community members standing behind the mother of a young person brutally murdered by the police. A diverse group of effective spokespeople can help bring the media to your press conference- be it a local politician, a leader in the faith community, and/or a directly affected person. In short, you should hold a press conference only if you can make a strong connection between your work and breaking news, provide compelling visuals, and if you can bring out influential allies to speak in support of your goal.

We forget there are—or maybe we aren’t sure how to utilize them—a whole arsenal of communications strategies, also called tactics, at our disposal, many of which are much more effective in conserving our time and energy and are more appropriate for our organizing or communications goals.

Communications tactics are specific activities or methods that lead to a larger goal, and they should be appropriate for what you are trying to achieve. Communications tactics can also be participatory and can engage collective decision-making and support collective action, all while building the communications skills, capacity, and leadership of your members and staff.

The strategies you choose—and how successful they are at achieving your goals—depend on your capacity to develop, implement, and follow through. Here is a short list of what I think are the most useful communications tactics, but you can find a full list of strategies (along with other great resources on effective media strategy) in the Center for Media Justice Toolbox:

Letters to the Editor: LTEs are 50-word letters stating an opinion on a particular article that appeared in a newspaper the day before.

Media Advisory: Media advisories list the “who, what, when, and where” of your press conference, rally, or other event that has compelling visuals or spokespeople that will draw media attendance.

Media Availability: An excellent way to piggyback off the news, a media availability goes out to your press list to let the media know that an expert opinion is available for interviews on current events. For example, if there is a case of police brutality in the news, you can send a media availability offering interview with a spokesperson from your community who has experienced police brutality. You can tie your story to the news this way, without expending too many resources.

Op-Eds: Op-eds are 650-word opinion essays written by an “expert” or someone directly affected by the issue. Op-eds appear “opposite the editorial page” in newspapers, and are very influential with policymakers.

Press Release: A press release is essentially a simulated news article. It should convey NEW news. Press releases should be no more than one to two pages framing your story, including your messages in quotations, to hook reporters into covering your news. Press releases can be distributed immediately when breaking news occurs or on the day of or during your event. You can also send embargoed press releases to journalists you trust in the hopes that they will amplify your story in a timely fashion.

Press Statement: A press statement is typically used to respond to breaking news. It can be attributed to your organization or to a spokesperson. For example, if you’re working on education justice and a big story breaks in the news about education, write up your own statement with your messages hooked to this news, and email and fax it to your press list.

Telebriefing/Teleconference: Like a press conference, but with national reach as it’s done over electronic technology. This tactic is appropriate if your spokespeople are spread out across a large area, or you are working with bloggers or journalists across the country.

My coworker amalia told me about this movie starring Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal called Won’t Back Down so I watched the trailer and a few clips. It’s hard to spot what this pro-charter school/anti-union movie is all about. It appears to be a kind of liberal grrrl power movie about a dedicated teacher and scrappy working class woman who win hearts and minds to take over a failing school using those sneaky parent-trigger laws that are catching on nationwide. During one scene, Davis’ character even talks about the school-to-prison pipeline at a rally with a lot of scrappy-looking people doing a lot of heartfelt nodding and fist raising. Some finishing touches are a little romance with a sexy art-teacher musician type, a Gandhi quotation, and caricatures of seedy/greedy union reps.

Aside from it being a movie I don’t think I’d want to pay $14 to see (yes, the last ticket I bought in NYC was $14)—and a lot of people felt the same way (it had record-low box office sales)—Won’t Back Down is produced by the conservative Walden Media company and financed by Phil Anschutz, a guy who has a long and sordid history of using his big bucks to fund misinformation campaigns. For instance, Anschutz (from Bold Progressives):

• Spent $10,000 in 1992 to promote Colorado’s Proposition 2, which let private property owners discriminate against gays and lesbians. He also gave $150,000 to the Mission America Foundation, which condemns homosexuality as “deviance”;
• Gave $70,000 to the Discovery Institute in 2003 (via his foundation), which attacks evolutionary theory and proclaims “Darwinism is false”;
• Donated at least $210,000 (via his foundation) to the National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation, which works to undermine labor rights; and
• Owns both The Washington Examiner and The Weekly Standard, two of the most prominent right-wing tabloids and magazines that regularly demonize progressives and their beliefs.

Anyhow, back to the charter school tip. I’m a public school kid through and through. I was privileged to have attended “magnet” (no pun intended) and specialized schools in the New York City public school system. I grew up with arts education, and the school day didn’t have to happen in shifts or in converted supply closets because of overcrowding (though I still couldn’t tell you where the Maldives or Switzerland are on a map).

When I was in junior high, a charter school opened up a few blocks from where I lived. It was the first charter school in the area and I only knew kids from public or Catholic school. From what I gathered, charter schools were small, great schools for kids from all around the city (not necessarily for kids from my own overcrowded working class immigrant neighborhood); had small class sizes and cool extracurricular activities; they weren’t public or faith-based; and you had to win a lottery to get in.

It was only 10 years later during a phone conversation with an organizer from FUREE that I got what the fundamental problem with charter schools is. We were talking about business improvement districts (BIDs) that privatize the running of commercial corridors, i.e. infrastructure and waste management. As with BIDs, to privatize education is to take power out of the community’s hands and into the hands of unaccountable organizations or corporations. Simply put, even the best-intentioned charter schools don’t and can’t change the system.

StudentsFirst, the monster behind this pro-charter “movement” is working closely with the Won’t Back Down crew to leverage its momentum. It has already donated $2 million to the Romney campaign and super PACs and its New York chapter is working closely with NYC Mayor Bloomberg to use a plan developed by Bain & Company that will treat public schools the way Romney’s Bain Capital treated companies.

Scared? You should be. I’ll take this opportunity to plug New Yorkers for Great Public Schools, which came together to combat StudentsFirst NY and their scariness. And remember: Think twice, three, or a hundred times about who’s sitting in the director’s seat the next time you watch a movie.

According to Brett O’Donnell, a consultant who trains Republican candidates like Mitt Romney, pivoting is “a way of taking a question that might be on a specific subject, and moving to answer it on your own terms.” Romney used pivoting during the debate to deflect criticism, evade direct responses, and turn a topic into an offensive attack. So you might be thinking, “Well, isn’t that kind of shady?” Not necessarily. So long as you’re not making outright lies (see here and here, pivoting can help you use an opponent’s question intended to derail the conversation and make you flustered to: 1) acknowledge their point, and 2) redirect attention to the real issue.

You can sometimes do this simply by using pivot phrases, like “I can see what you’re saying, but I think the real issue is…” or “That’s an interesting point, but what I think it’s important to note that….” When Fox Business News interviewed Take Back the Land’s Max Rameau, the first question they asked him was “Is this legal?”

Rameau successfully diverted attention back to the core work of TBTL by saying “ Well I’m not a lawyer so I certainly don’t want to give any legal opinion, so our primary concern is not the legality of it but the morality of it. The reality is there are large numbers of people right now who don’t have a place to stay, human beings who don’t have anywhere to live.” Check out this spokesperson tip sheet from Center for Media Justice.

Another tactic that helps when speaking publicly is self-deprecation with a sense of humor. President Obama did a great job of this last night: “You know, four years ago, I said that I’m not a perfect man and I wouldn’t be a perfect president. And that’s probably a promise that Governor Romney thinks I’ve kept” and “I have become fond of this term, ‘Obamacare’.” Poking fun at something can also be successful at undermining its very power. And, laughing at yourself using things that other people have laughed at you about makes light of the situation and it may turn a point of vulnerability into a point of identification for your audience—simply put, it can humanize you and make you more likeable.

Personalizing a message in any way is a surefire way to make an impression. Both President Obama and Romney did a good job of this. President Obama opened up the night by talking about Michelle Obama’s and his wedding anniversary; Romney brought people to fuzzy home imagery with “an economic crisis at the kitchen table” and talked about his “five boys” (ironically to stress that he is used to “people” repeating the same lie over an over again—another very effective technique that he employed around the Affordable Care Act; and both told stories about “regular Americans” to put a face on and gain sympathy for their respective plans.

(Side Note: You might also choose to appropriate quotations from famous people, like when Romney said “You’re entitled, Mr. President…to your own airplane and your own house, but not to your own facts,” evoking the politician Daniel Patrick Moynihan who said about welfare that “a community that allows a large number of men to grow up in broken families, dominated by women…asks for and gets chaos [and] it is richly deserved.”)

It’s important to note the route each debater chose to follow in his closing remarks. We all know that just one simple word or a combination of simple words can make you swell up inside or make you tight with fear—and sometimes we’re not even sure why. These include: children, chronic unemployment, rising income, 12 million new jobs, dramatic cuts, military, losing, commitment, strong, strong middle class. Romney’s closing was essentially a cluster bomb of these value words and phrases. And, while critics all around have given President Obama bad marks for his debate performance, I thought he closed the night beautifully. President Obama pieced his remarks together in a cohesive narrative that segued from education, to corporate responsibility, to employment, to energy, jobs, and the middle class—and all this grounded in a story about a woman in North Carolina.

Telling a simple story is sometimes all it takes.

Click the like button if you feel these tips and comment on Facebook on where you think the candidates did well or not so good…

—David Ritchie in “Frame-Shifting in Humor and Irony”

 One year after the emergence of Occupy Wall Street and the countless occupy and 99% memes and catchphrases since then ranging from all matters social justice to t-shirts by Jay-Z, online shopping, South Park and so much more, I wanted to take a moment to show some of my favorite examples of how Occupy humor has been used to subvert power and the police, win audiences, and generally poke fun.

Angry Cop Cat

Dear Capitalism. . .

Fishing for Cops With Donuts

Hipster Cop

Bert Arrested During Occupy

Pepper Spray Constitution-Hongwan Liu

virgen de guadalupe-pepperspray

Join the conversation on Facebook and post your favorite Occupy Humor photos!

A recent example of the power of the American Dream frame was a speech given at the Democratic National Convention by veteran Tammy Duckworth, one of the first women in the Army to fly combat missions in Iraq and a candidate for Illinois’ 8^th Congressional District.

Ms. Duckworth evoked bootstraps imagery in the opening of her speech:  “Dad’s work took us all over the world until he lost his job. It was a tough time. We used up our savings, moved into a studio apartment. But our family did the responsible thing and rolled up our sleeves. Mom took in sewing. My 55-year-old dad tried to find work. But at 15, I was the only one with a job—after school, for minimum wage.” Read or watch the full speech.

Tammy Duckworth is Asian American (her mother is Thai and Chinese). She is a double amputee. She is a veteran and war hero. She is a cisgender woman who wears red lipstick. She grew up working class. She is college educated. She made hot cocoa for her team before training exercises. In many ways, Ms. Duckworth embodies multiple frames and individualistic mythologies that relate to the American Dream. Some might argue that using the American Dream frame is a strategic choice—perhaps not intentionally for Ms. Duckworth—though we know it is a contentious issue for many grassroots social justice organizations (check out our heroes from UndocuBus at nopapersnofear.org) when it comes to mainstream immigrant rights groups’ framing.

While Ms. Duckworth opened on the American Dream, she later introduced the importance of public assistance:

“Thank God for the food stamps, public education and Pell grants that helped me finish high school and college.”

Some might say she invoked the solidarity frame:

“It’s about whether we will do for our fellow Americans what my crew did for me; whether we’ll look out for the hardest hit and the disabled; whether we’ll pull together in a time of need; whether we’ll refuse to give up until the job is done.” 

Granted, we know that a vast number of veterans return to this country they laid their lives on the line for, only to receive no or inaccessible services.  The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that between 23 percent and 33 percent of uniformed women have been assaulted, and that ableism is alive and well—but hey, it’s election season.

How can we take the best of the American Dream frame (the part that mobilizes, not fear-mongers) and put it to work? Pollsters have found that the words “opportunity,” “freedom,” and “security” resonate to broadly held values and have had some success when used by progressives. Read this report on the “opportunity frame”. You can try your hand at framing using these guiding questions for effective framing and messaging from the Center for Media Justice.

The three members of the Russian punk group “Pussy Riot” – Maria Alyokhina, 24, Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22 – who were sentenced to two years in prison (probably in Siberia) for an anti-President Vladimir Putin stunt in a Russian Orthodox church 5 months ago have created quite a stir among the more visible liberal to progressive pundits.

The few scandalous minutes of Pussy Riot’s performance in a Russian Orthodox church earlier this year (scroll down for lyrics)

The global political and social discourse that is rippling out from this case is infinite, and I’m not quite sure where to begin. So, instead, I’ve compiled some excerpts from various media coverage about Pussy Riot below, organized into loosely constructed categories. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Commercializing Dissent 

From The Atlantic and Joshua Foust: “Focusing on the spectacle of Pussy Riot actually obscures the real issues that prompted their trial in the first place. Pussy Riot are not peasants grabbed off the road and put on trial for being women — they are rather famous (at least in Russia) political activists who got arrested for political activism. That is a horrible, ludicrous thing for Russia to do, but making them into innocent everymen misunderstands both their actual efforts and why they matter. Pussy Riot are part of a larger movement within Russia to demand political freedom, one that Putin’s regime thugs are literally, physically beating back. American celebrities are right to be outraged about Pussy Riot’s treatment, but it’s a shame that so few seem to have investigated what happens to the activists who aren’t Western media darlings for their all-women punk bands with sexually suggestive names. Rather than the Pussy Riot trial catalyzing a broader Western awareness of Russian authoritarian backsliding or even a popular movement to pressure Moscow to loosen its restrictions, it seems to have inspired little more in the West than outrage about how sad it is for some punk rockers to go to jail for a silly little church concert.”

From Al Jazeera and Mark LeVine: “I’m sure the members of Pussy Riot were thrilled that Madonna wore a balaclava in their honour at her Moscow concert, and that Red Hot Chili Peppers donned Pussy Riot t-shirts at their Russian concerts (we’ll see if the Chilis show a similar concern for Palestinian prisoners – including artists – when they perform in Israel). But, globally, there are hundreds of artistes under far greater threat to their freedom and lives who deserve the same attention.”

Subversive Art

From The Atlantic and Chauncey Hollingsworth: “Joseph Brodsky was a poet and writer who, like Pussy Riot, was brought before Russian (then Soviet) authorities in the mid-1960s for charges of “malicious parasitism.” After five years of hard labor, he was kicked out of the USSR and ended up in America, where he was eventually awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature and was appointed United States Poet Laureate. Perhaps fate and history will treat Pussy Riot just as well.”

From the Guardian UK and John Harris: “The heritage of protest and provocation on which Nadezhda Tolokonnikova was drawing was confirmed as soon as I saw her picture. The hair cut into a functional bob, the “No Pasaran” T‑shirt with the clenched-fist logo, her leading place in a band-cum-collective called Pussy Riot – it was as if she had been plucked from the Anglo-American subculture known as riot grrrl circa 1992, and dropped into modern Russia.”

The Privileging of Outrage

From the Sydney Morning Herald and Clem Bastow: “The sight of a beautiful young white woman staring down a prison sentence is, for many, an abject tragedy. Compare that with the media attention given to coloured women or transgender women who have recently faced similar predicaments. Take, for example, Chrishaun ”Cece” McDonald. The 23-year-old was recently sentenced to 41 months in prison for second-degree manslaughter in the US. When she and her friends were subjected to a tirade of racist and transphobic abuse from a group of white men, a fight broke out and one of her attackers was stabbed and later died…she’s now serving her sentence in the men’s prison in St Cloud, Minnesota. McDonald’s case received little mainstream media attention, and far fewer outraged blog posts by white western feminists than Pussy Riot have inspired.”

Russia’s Post-Soviet Brand

From the Guardian UK and Carole Cadwalladr: “They’re now going to pay the price. Russian women’s prisons are even harsher than the male ones. The women have been depicted on state television as evil satanists and their lawyers fear for their safety. It’s unlikely they’ll stay in Moscow; like Khodorkovsky, they’ll probably be shipped off to a far-off prison in Siberia away from family and friends, from their young children. It’s not a joke. It’s a brutal, nasty place, Putin’s Russia. And because of Pussy Riot, we all now know that now.”

From the Guardian UK and Miriam Elder: “Tina Kandelaki, a prominent media personality and Putin cheerleader, called the verdict and sentence “information suicide” and “wrong at its very roots”. “For some reason, from the very beginning, Putin’s advisers gave the president a new ‘Khodorkovsky’,” she said, referring to jailed oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, whose arrest in 2003 signalled Putin’s willingness to jail political critics, say critics. “The millions of dollars of taxpayer money spent in the last few years on fixing the image of our country abroad have been thrown to the wind,” she said. “Our image in the eyes of the world is getting closer to a medieval dictatorship, although in reality we are not that.”

The Lyrics That Did It

(Chorus)

St. Maria, Virgin, Drive away Putin
Drive away! Drive away Putin!
(end chorus)

Black robe, golden epaulettes
All parishioners are crawling and bowing
The ghost of freedom is in heaven
Gay pride sent to Siberia in chains

The head of the KGB is their chief saint
Leads protesters to prison under escort
In order not to offend the Holy
Women have to give birth and to love

Holy shit, shit, Lord’s sh*t!
Holy shit, shit, Lord’s sh*t!

(Chorus)
St. Maria, Virgin, become a feminist
Become a feminist, Become a feminist
(end chorus)

Church praises the rotten dictators
The cross-bearer procession of black limousines
In school you are going to meet with a teacher-preacher
Go to class – bring him money!

Patriarch Gundyaev believes in Putin
B*tch, you better believed in God
Belt of the Virgin is no substitute for mass-meetings
In protest of our Ever-Virgin Mary!

(Chorus)
St. Maria, Virgin, Drive away Putin
Drive away! Drive away Putin!
(end chorus)

Grassroots organizations are also subjected to communications crises that can seriously damage social movements and even be fatal to the life of an institution. One high profile example was the attack staged by the late rightwing activist Andrew Breitbart on ACORN in 2009, which led to a series of fiascos and an investigation into the organization, including bogus allegations by members of congress that ACORN engaged in fraud, criminal conspiracy and money laundering. These crises and the hyper-sensational media coverage ultimately led to the dismantling of ACORN.

Having a solid crisis communication plan is one way to assert some control over message and the flow of information in a media crisis and is primarily about being prepared and responsive. One of the primary functions of a crisis communications plan or protocol is to identify a spokesperson who is experienced and comfortable working the media, and is skilled at reiterating key points and messages without appearing defensive or secretive.

Being open and accountable while leading audiences to the real social issues your organization and community is working for is helpful—and being up front is invaluable. “Tell it all and tell it fast” is one mantra (from Communications for Management)—kind of like when you make a boo-boo with your partner (if the crisis indeed originates from some oversight on your part). It’s savvier to tell the story straight from the horse’s mouth with honesty and accountability while you can control it, rather than from the mouth of your opponents and the spin they will undoubtedly put on it.

Remember: acting quickly isn’t the same as acting rashly. Prepare yourself and don’t give any information you’re not certain is true. (Check out some spokesperson tips here)

Here is a sample crisis communications the Center for Media justice worked out with one our of our clients—feel free to use this according to your organization’s leadership structure and tailor it to be as relevant as possible to any potential communications crises you may encounter:

1. The executive director and board chair will consult with members of staff and other board members to identify or agree on key messages with which to respond to both internal and external stakeholders/audiences. You may want to consult with your attorney too. Messages should be reviewed for tone.
2. A briefing sheet will be shared internally (you can decide if this means just board and staff or also leaders in your membership) explaining the basic facts of what is going on and providing clear, simple instructions on how to handle media or external (allies, funders) questions regarding the situation.
3. If the crisis reaches a scale at which your membership will become concerned, communicate with your membership through a brief e-blast or letter from the executive director or other appropriate individual.
4. Staff and board should be informed of any public or press statement that goes out so they are aware of the organization’s position/messages and that they may be contacted, in which event they should follow the process below.
5. All media inquiries will be referred to a single organizational spokesperson, i.e. the staff organizer, board chair, or executive director. No other staff or board members are to speak with the media unless specifically discussed and designated. The media contact, booker, or designated spokesperson should be available to the media at all times.

—The Design Studio for Social Intervention

There are days when I feel like I’m going to run out of a building screaming if I hear another word of “movement speak”. You know what I’m talking about. We get insular. If I talked to my mom like I talk to people in social justice spaces, she’d look at me like I’ve lost my mind.

Part of the work of organizing and communications strategy is to break out of the box. There are some awesome examples out there of how this can be done through culture jamming and other tactics that connect your work to pop culture.

Last week in New Orleans, I connected with fellow technical assistance providers of Communities Creating Healthy Environments from Design Studio for Social Intervention, which is doing something super fresh for social movements.

DS4SI, which designs and prototypes alternative ways to approach and address complex social problems, was taking their Action Lab process on a test drive at the CCHE and Roots and Remedies gathering at University of New Orleans last week. I was psyched because I am secretly a design geek wannabe. Stations were scattered with magazines for collage, action figures, Play-Doh and blank diagrams were set up throughout. Even the information on the walls felt interactive. I snuck into the sunlit Action Lab whenever I could, as did others (someone took a power-nap under a table there at one point). The flow and energy of the space was very, very nice.

In the simplest terms, the Action Lab engages participants in a 4-step process for developing a “social intervention” for your campaign. The steps included: Context (of your issue and work); Symbol (that breaks out of the box); Leap (how you’ll put your symbol into action); and Test (how you’ll measure success). See the slideshow below of my own reproductive justice Action Lab results below.

I loved the fluidity and cleanness of the process; the tactile elements; having a designated space to think outside of the choir (e.g. collaging trashy magazines and tabloids), to develop a creative, tangible symbol, AND to set and test my own metrics for success. All these things are a best practice for how one might go about developing their messages as well.

Anyhow, I went poking around the DS4SI website and found more treats. One that I’ll share here is their “Five S” Methodology that looks at Structure, System, Scale, Symbol and Sensation to design your own social intervention.

The methodology asks one to look at all sides of a complex issue, including cause and effect, physical space and structures, the size of the issue. I like to think of it as a Rubik’s Cube (not that I’ve ever solved one). Every perspective offers a clue, or an entry point, to the mechanism of the puzzle. In that way, the Five S’s expose the most structural points of convergence in your work. Check it out!