Proposer's Name: Ms. Agustina Callegari
Proposer's Organization: Independent
Co-Proposer's Name: Mr. Michael Oghia
Co-Proposer's Organization: Independent
Co-Organizers:
Ms., Agustina, CALLEGARI, Civil Society, Independent
Mr., Michael, OGHIA, Civil Society, Independent
Ms. Jelena, Technical community, RNIDS
Session Format: Break-out Group Discussions - 90 Min
Proposer:
Country: Argentina
Stakeholder Group: Civil Society
Co-Proposer:
Country: Serbia
Stakeholder Group: Civil Society
Speaker: Jaifa Margarita Mezher Arango
Speaker: Daniel OMaley
Speaker: Michael Joseph Oghia
Speaker: FRANCISCO CARVALHO DE CRUZ
Speaker: Jelena Ozegovic
Speaker: Evelyn Namara
Content of the Session:
For those who work on Internet policy issues, talking about Internet governance is part of our daily routine. Yet, when we move the discussion outside of the community and into our routine spheres of life, it can often be difficult to explain it and/or difficult to comprehend. As such, the impact of the topics on someone’s life who is not involved in Internet governance processes tends to be less clear. How many of our parent and friends can explain what we do to someone else, for instance?
Since the IGF is a multistakeholder platform that facilitates the discussion of public policy issues pertaining to the Internet, it is important to discuss how we approach those individuals who are not as familiar with Internet policy or involved in the matter – especially if they are end users themselves – and also how to receive more and better attention from the media regarding topics that affect Internet users worldwide. Even though in cases such as the Snowden revelations the attention to the importance of the Internet was more prominent, generally speaking, Internet policy issues are not well understood by people outside the Internet governance ecosystem. This is particularly important as National and Regional IGF Initiatives (NRIs) expand and grow. More, often non-traditional, stakeholders and individual actors will be engaged, many for the first time, and ensuring they understand Internet governance is critical. This also relates to the availability of content relevant to their local context and in local languages, as well as technical matters such as Universal Acceptance.
This session aims to bring together different stakeholders who are working in positions and fields that communicate Internet governance issues to the public in order to identify better practices and new ways of telling engaging stories on the matter. In addition, it seeks to provide a platform for further cooperation and the exchange of ideas between various stakeholders.
During the preparatory process before the IGF will be held, an online questionnaire targeting both Internet governance professionals and the general public will be created by the session organizers and distributed across various channels, such as email lists and social media channels. It aims to gather information on the existing practices and challenges, and to investigate how the general public understands Internet governance-related topics. The results of the questionnaire will be presented in the introduction part of the session.
The session outcome will include a guide with recommendations we plan to publish based on the results of the discussion, along with related links and resources, which we will disseminate by February 2018 as a post-IGF report.
Relevance of the Session:
The issue is relevant for most IGF topics as the idea of the workshop is to discuss how to improve communication about internet governance. The workshop is important to the programme as it is a topic has never been fully addressed before. If we identify better communication practices, we will be able to reach a broader public highlighting why is important for them to shape their digital future.
Tag 1: Multistakeholder Cooperation
Tag 2: Digital Literacy
Tag 3: Multilingualism and Local Content
Interventions:
Breakout sessions are ideal for this type of workshop since we want to brainstorm solutions and recommendations. The workshop will open by an introduction by the moderator, and then facilitators will split the in-person attendees into smaller groups that will then report back (the same will be done for remote participants by the remote moderator).
The small-group facilitators will lead the discussion as well as offer their own insights and suggestions.
List of facilitators.
Luna Madi, Sr Communication Manager, ICANN (EMEA) - technical community
Jelena Ozegovic, Communication Associate at the Serbian national Internet domain registry (RNIDS) (Europe) - technical community
Michael Oghia, independent consultant (Europe) - civil society
Jennifer Chung, dotAsia (Asia) - technical community
Francisco Brito Cruz, InternetLab (LAC) -civil society
Evelyn Namara, Africa Civil Society on Information Society (ACSIS) (Africa) - civil society
Jaifa Margarita Mezher Arango - Government of Colombia (LAC) - government
Dan O’Malley, Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA), North America
Diversity:
The session will have speakers/facilitators from different regions (North America, LAC, Europe, Mena region Asia, Africa) and from different sectors (technical community, civil society, government). In addition, the session has more than 50% of female participants.
Onsite Moderator: Agustina Callegari
Online Moderator: Krishna Kumar
Rapporteur: Mark Datysgeld
Online Participation:
During the session, online participants will also abide by the same format as the on-site participants. The remote moderator will facilitate discussions in the group chat using the IGF platform for remote participation, and report about their discussion. We will invite online journalists already involved in technology and Internet issues to participate and share their opinions as well. Also, social media channels will be important to promote the topic and to reach communication specialist who may be interested in the topics.
Discussion facilitation:
As the session will be a break out discussion, the idea is that there are not speakers at the session. People list as speakers will be leading the discussion as facilitators. After a short introduction of the topic, we propose to divide the audience into four different groups. Each group will have two facilitators of different backgrounds and will be assigned with one of the four main topics (see below). In each group, each facilitator will have no more than five minutes to give an opening statement regarding one of the kicks off questions. After that, everybody will be able to take the mic as will aim to have different perspectives and create a more vibrant discussion. The facilitators will be also in charge of documenting the main points of the discussion, which will be share with others groups in the last part of the session.
Agenda:
Introduction - Welcome, purpose and objective of the discussion with short presentation of the results of the questionnaire - 10 minutes
Break out discussion in 4 groups: 60 minutes
Topics for a break out discussion:
Reaching a broader public: does IG community really needs it or it is a general mantra?
The relationship with the traditional media and journalists: have we given up trying to reach them unless we have some exclusive info?
Local content: good practices and lessons learned
Why should people care about IG topics? How can we make them care?
Share and conclusion- 20 minutes
Conducted a Workshop in IGF before?: No
Link to Report:
Luna Madi, Sr Communication Manager, ICANN (EMEA) - luna.madi@icann.org
Luna serves ICANN as Director, EMEA Communication.
Jennifer Chung, dotAsia (Asia) - jen@registry.asia
Jennifer is the Director of Corporate Knowledge for DotAsia Organisation and oversees
the knowledge and policy development for DotAsia in the region and in the community.
Topics for a break out discussion:
