Foreign and Commonwealth Office Bloggers: Global Conversations
URL blogs.fco.gov.uk
CASE STUDY OWNER Foriegn and Commonwealth Office
Overview
When the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) published its new priorities in the 2006 white paper, it emphasised the need to adapt to a fast-changing and increasingly globalised communications environment. The result is a plethora of new strategies embracing emerging technologies.
As well as the ‘FCO bloggers’ website being evaluated in this case study, the FCO has channels on YouTube and Flickr providing multi-platform mixed channel approaches to engagement.
Policy purpose
The site was set up to encourage a range of FCO personnel (from ministers to staff) to blog; beyond that, the intention was to find ways of feeding issues raised during engagement (rather than consultation) into the policy cycle.
Model
The site was carried over from DEFRA where it had been used to host David Miliband’s blog when he was secretary of state for the environment. By stripping and re-skinning the site, those who had followed David Miliband’s blog in its previous incarnation lost access to its archive. The new site allowed bloggers to embed videos and images; authors were given camcorders and the FCO developed channels on Flickr and YouTube, with comments enabled.
David Miliband writes in his role as foreign secretary; Jim Murphy, as minister for Europe; Frances Guy posts from Lebanon, where she is Ambassador; and Sarah Russell – a new entrant to the diplomatic service – posts about her experience. This permanent slate of authors allows us to explore how newer bloggers develop their web-presence and how established bloggers carry a following.
The majority of blog authors on the FCO site have a temporary presence either because it is their preference or because the project about which they are blogging is short-term (e.g., the FCO blog on climate change from Costa Rica). Many are posted in turbulent contexts (currently, there are blogs from Harare and Pristina; previously, from Afghanistan), aiming to increase engagement and understanding (the British-Bangladeshi delegation to Dhaka is another case in point). Once they are closed, blogs are archived – accessible by prominent link.
Publicity
The blog was initially promoted via press releases and through the FCO’s website. It has been picked up by a number of government-related blogs, but there is little evidence that it is being discussed or linked to by foreign policy blogs.
Other methods of engagement
Since the 2006 white paper, the FCO has positioned itself as a ‘global network’ which can and should benefit from the forms of engagement made possible by the internet. This hasn’t replaced its offline activity; in fact, the FCO still meets with academics, think tanks, NGOs and representative organisations. It has also undertaken a stakeholder survey to assess its work.
User profiles
Registration was not required of visitors to the site. Information about users was gleaned from their voluntary completion of a pre-engagement survey: 80 people responded to it – of these, around 70 per cent said that they were English; 1 per cent Scottish, Northern Irish and Welsh (respectively). Visitors also came from France, Canada, Japan, Qatar, and South America.
The site conforms to the gendered pattern of engagement typical of the internet and political engagement generally: under 30 per cent of respondents were women, compared to over 65 per cent men. The age range of respondents reflected the online norm:
The majority of respondents claimed to be regular internet users with most accessing it from home (over 85 per cent) or work (around 50 per cent); political blogs were generally on their radars (over 40 per cent of respondents looked at mainstream current affairs blogs, such as those run by the BBC or The Guardian as well as more partisan blogs). Despite engaging with politics online, few (11.5 per cent) were active bloggers themselves.
The blog appealed mainly to FCO-insiders, be they people who had regular contact with the FCO or who worked for it. Around 20 per cent heard about the site from the general media or via other sites. The remaining respondents heard about the site by email, or via its website or by word-of-mouth.
Political engagement was significantly higher than average amongst respondents: around 50 per cent expressed a keen interest in politics with almost 70 per cent claiming to be specifically interested in foreign policy. Most were already fairly-to-very aware of the FCO’s role (almost 70 per cent) – a statistic that reflects the avenues by which people came to read the blog in the first place, with 40 per cent claiming to have had some individual communication with the organisation. Interestingly, around 50 per cent of respondents claimed not to have had similar contact with their MP or local councillor; despite this, almost 80 per cent had participated in local and national elections, suggesting a much higher than average political engagement.
The site managed to develop a community of readers fairly quickly; although a high degree of curiosity was expressed (45 per cent of respondents claimed that their interest in the site was cursory), many respondents wanted to actively engage with the site; 49 per cent wanted to read specific blogs; 24 per cent to post comments; 39 per cent to read comments.
Site performance
The evaluation period ran from 1 September 2007 – 31 March 2008. Statistics collected from the back-end of the site suggest that there were on average three page views per visit; this is indicative of the site’s appeal to its users who moved between different bloggers and site pages. The following table provides a breakdown of the number of page views per blog section.
The figures in the above table provide us with a sense of the interest generated by the various blogs. In total, during the evaluation period, a total of 185 entries were made by bloggers; David Miliband was (perhaps unsurprisingly) the most prolific. He continued to build on his experience of blogging to achieve a high level of interest (his blog attracted over 50 per cent of the site’s visits).
The foreign secretary’s blog attracted fewer comments per post (1065 comments to 87 posts) than did the minister for Europe (651 comments for 43 posts). However, interest in Jim Murphy’s blog was largely prompted by a comment made on it – about French health care for British ex-pats – which, in turn, led to policy change.
The number of visits to blogs was high – even when there were few comments (e.g., Claire Hughes’s six-week blog attracted almost 2,500 visits, with only six comments (and 16 entries) made).
The FCO was unable to provide us with monthly statistics to highlight how the blog traffic varied over time. However, the response to the two newest blogs (those of Philip Barclay et al (starting on 29 Feb, 2008) in Harare and that of Ruairi O’Connell (commencing 23 Jan, 2008) in Pristina, suggests that interest is still strong. This suggests that the suite of blogs has attracted sufficient interest that even if there is a personnel change within the FCO, the enterprise will continue.
User feedback
Around 60 per cent of the 30 people providing feedback said that the blog compared favourably to similar sites they had visited: a high proportion of respondents (over 25 per cent) visited the site daily; a similar volume looked at the site on a weekly basis, and around 25 per cent checked the blog at least monthly. Where the site gained traction in terms of visits, it also drew in new visitors through the temporary blogs about specific countries (such as Kosovo or Zimbabwe).
Respondents reported a high level of interaction with the blog, with almost 45 per cent saying that they had posted comments; not only did around 85 per cent of respondents read posts by other visitors, but there was a high level of engagement between users.
A non-interventionist approach was taken to moderation; posts were turned away only if they broke site terms and conditions, rather than because they expressed challenging perspectives. This often meant that users moderated themselves and others effectively – a point that was noted by the case study owners who felt that the interactions on the blog generally warranted the light-touch moderation used on the site. Users, too, expressed some satisfaction with the fact that they were left to their own devices when it came to addressing topical issues:
The blog has reflected the policy of interaction and highlighted on the importance of debating hotspot issues.
This view was by no means universal, however: some users felt that the site was too harshly moderated and that it was important for the debate to be had – even if the views expressed were outlandish (in which case they could be tackled).
Interaction was also felt to be less frequent than was required; this was attributed in some cases to the failure to promote the site externally to attract a greater number of voices. However, the case study owners noted the draw of two high-profile ministers and highlighted a dilemma about quantity and quality – the latter is not ensured by the former, but is more likely when engaging with people who are fairly knowledgeable about the subjects being discussed.
Despite these reservations, users were generally happy with the site and pleased that it exists, noting that it continued to discuss issues that were sensitive to the FCO. David Miliband’s blog was one of the biggest draws to the site. Of our respondents, over 35 per cent claimed to visit his blog most regularly, with Jim Murphy’s attracting 22 per cent of respondents. Miliband’s blog was viewed by many as authentic:
The fact Miliband manages to pull off putting a personal touch to his entries despite being the foreign secretary.
Praise for the foreign secretary’s blog was not tempered by any criticism; whereas in the past, there have been negative comments about the cost of his blogging platform or his ‘institutional’ patina, such concerns seem to have tailed off, suggesting that the suite of blogs has an appreciative audience.
The minister for Europe received some criticism because of his lack of engagement; policy changes, however, arose because of comments posted on his blog. Users appreciated the developments that occurred around French health care but noted that the minister for Europe could have used the blog to respond a bit more (while effecting change).
The blog preferences expressed by site visitors are confirmed by the statistics presented in the site performance section of this case study. Meanwhile, respondents reported reading comments more often than they did other sections of the blog; a similar proportion (around 11 per cent) reported focusing on specific themes rather than particular blogs (e.g., French health care).
The blog in general was a success, according to respondents; just under 60 per cent said that they learnt about the FCO from participating in or reading discussions. This is an achievement for an organisation whose security concerns are such that the idea of engagement can often be considered risky. Over half (55 per cent) said that they learnt about specific areas of foreign policy from the blog: the video-blog from the British Ambassador to Afghanistan provided the case study owners with a concrete example of the way that the blog can communicate what the FCO is doing behind the headlines.
Perhaps, then, it is unsurprising that around 70 per cent felt that blogging could provide a valuable means of engagement in this context; helping users to find out about developments and affect them; providing information that might never be published in newspapers or broadcast on TV or radio about trouble-spots and issues being tackled by the FCO.
The positive outcomes of the blog were such that the vast majority (over 85 per cent of users) said that they would continue to the visit the site: fewer (just over 70 per cent) said that they would recommend the site to others, perhaps emphasising the developed nature of people’s interest in foreign policy prior to engagement.
Follow up
The FCO has upgraded to a new platform. All the current discussions will be archived but the intention is to carry on developing a multi-blog platform and to combine off- and online activity (such as the delegations) to promote understandings of the FCO’s work. The intention is to harness the multimedia aspects of the internet so that the site does not rely on text.
The suite of blogs means that the site is not dependent on Miliband’s ministry to continue; the intention is to learn from the evaluation and develop the blog and the culture of blogging within the FCO.
