Richard North, of the EU Referendum, the only player in the map below to have three balls, points out that Profero has made an “update” on their website. But there’s no update to the hilariously flawed networking map they produced, at least that I can find.
A small group of dedicated people coming from a diverse range of positions and perspectives but working together as a loose federation held together by shared values and beliefs succeeded in accomplishing the most impressive PR coup of the 21st century.
“…by significantly influencing public perception of anthropogenic global warming by single-mindedly applying concerted and consistent pressure at critical junctures in the media ecology here in the UK and abroad.”
Update on the Oxfam online research project into climate change related conversation
Who we are & what we were commissioned by Oxfam to do
We are Unsimplify, a stand-alone company operating under the Profero umbrella, we’ve been working with Oxfam for a number of months on a project to assist them in helping to make sense of how the growth of online peer-to-peer news generation has and could in the future impact their campaigning activities.
We were commissioned by Oxfam to do this because they were looking for an approach that goes deeper than just monitoring and mapping online conversations – although this does form a part of what we do.
What we set out to do was to help Oxfam’s campaigns team make sense of key online conversations and news generators around climate change and international development issues and their dynamics in order that they might question, revise or support their existing mental models for campaigning and to support decision making and facilitate a culture of inquiry and curiosity amongst the campaign team.
If this sounds complex and challenging then that’s intentional because what Unsimplify does is complex, hence the name.
Putting The LeftFootForward piece into context
We’re really excited that people are taking an interest in what we do and hats off to LeftFootForward for getting the scoop on this piece of work but we’d like to clarify what’s being discussed (most of the conversations focus upon a visual representation of some of the key conversations in the form of a landscape map) as it should be understood in the context of an entire report (120 pages or so) which hasn’t been made public.
The report as a whole applies our own bespoke models and frameworks to both quantitative and qualitative data in order to bring to the surface complex dynamics and issues which would otherwise pass un-noticed if an automated technological monitoring solution had been used in isolation.
Why does this matter?
In a complex situation such as the one we were analysing, data alone won’t aid in making sense of what’s happening, but narratives, informed by data, mental models and assumptions, can.
For example, we didn’t examine the entire myriad of Facebook groups which have formed around climate change and international development issues because they were not significant in this context.
So, what’s the story then?
A small group of dedicated people coming from a diverse range of positions and perspectives but working together as a loose federation held together by shared values and beliefs succeeded in accomplishing the most impressive PR coup of the 21st century.
The climate change sceptics did this by significantly influencing public perception of anthropogenic global warming by single-mindedly applying concerted and consistent pressure at critical junctures in the media ecology here in the UK and abroad.
The map that’s being discussed outlines some of the key players and some of the dynamics at play in order to help create a meaningful narrative which captures the sense of what was happening and brings to the surface the key issues.
What happens next?
The ultimate goal of the project was to abstract from all the online noise a narrative and a working model for ‘next practice’ campaigning which would furnish Oxfam, and the progressive community in general, new insights and knowledge about how they might, in future, listen, respond and act into an increasingly complex and turbulent media ecology.
If you have any specific questions about the project please email Managing Director Stewart Conway on unsimplify@profero.com and we’ll do our best to answer them but please do bear in mind that we are really busy.
Alternatively you can visit the Wikipedia page on sense-making which outlines some of the key ideas which have inspired us and which inform our work and approach. The page has some great links to more extensive online resources about how organisations can make sense of, and act into, complex challenges and situations.
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It is obviously a projection, as WUWT is on the LEFT side! ☺
Monbiot has only got one ball,
Unless the other is very small,
The Guardian is somewhat similar,
And Nature, should have no balls at all.
their plan is to post something stupid with the hopes that we will comment on it and improve it. Research for free.
When I think of it, there is actually a “Big” thing that most skeptics rally around and are supported by.
It’s not Big Oil.
It is called “The Truth.”
I think Phil Jones used to think he had the biggest BALLS on the block.
But then the CRUTAPE (TM) letters came along, and the size of his BALLS shrank accordingly.
“We are Unsimplify, a stand-alone company operating under the Profero umbrella, we’ve been working with Oxfam for a number of months on a project to assist them in helping to make sense of how the growth of online peer-to-peer news generation has and could in the future impact their campaigning activities.”
Wow. So are they saying that this silly diagram took them several months to create? That’s just pathetic. I mean, seriously, I have teenage cousins who could have created this diagram in far less time (one hour — tops) and probably with greater accuracy. For example, how the heck did they manage to leave out the Drudge Report on the skeptics side when it arguably drives significant volumes of traffic to many of the smaller skeptical web sites and blogs?
Also the Fox News Network and The Washington Times are completely absent on the skeptical side and both are major players in disseminating news stories that are skeptical of the AGW hypothesis. Perhaps the biggest mystery of all is how the WSJ ended up on the “Supporter” side while the IPCC ended up in neutral territory. Has anyone at Unsimplify ever actually read the editorial section of the WSJ? Has anyone at Unsimplify ever actually read the AR5 summary for policymakers?
Oh well, at least we can say that this company has been consistent in living up to its name. By introducing contradictory players into the supporter network while simultaneously omitting major players from the skeptical network, they’ve essentially unsimplified what would otherwise have been an extremely simple tenth grade homework assignment.
The left-hand side has a combined funding of, what? A couple of million?
On the right-hand side the BBC has £3.4 BILLION alone!
Also, why on earth is the IPCC in the centre?
It’s not fair, I want three balls too and a cheque from oil companies!
Mr. Mohatarem got me thinking. All the AGW folks have got to do is lie and others will swear to it, while the burden of scientific logic has been placed erroneously on the side of the non-alarmists. Because AGW has drastic consequences, the burden of scientific proof and falsification should always be on the alarmists, but it isn’t. Back-asswards.
I had a great thought. Does everyone remember the Piltdown Man hoax, where a skull was hoaxed to make it appear old and all of the “consensus” was on the side that it was real? ? Maybe we could create a network diagram to show how the Piltdown hoax took in all but a couple of the prominent “scientists” (in quotation because the field of anthropology is also more “art” than science, but that is just me, a “hard” scientist talking).
It just shows how perverted and organisation like Oxfam has become. Surely they should be campaigning for more resources to combat poverty and malnutrition and thus ought to be trying to get some of the UN cash wasted on the IPCC and it’s ilk. But here they are campaigning, and presumably spending money, against freedom of expression and a skeptical view that might be more beneficial to there supposed cause. Definitely weird. The activists strike again to send what was originally a meaningful organisation down a rather political track
several posters on here are under the misapprehension that Oxfam is purely a do gooding charity. nothing could be further from the truth. they spend a huge proportion of the money collected from donations on active lobbying and direct actions to promote Mann Made Global Warming.
the majority of so called Charities and NGO’s are involved in the same charade- Christian Aid, Cafod, Sciaf, Goal, etc all spend vast sums on warmist Agitprop.
similiarly the major churches are also involved. Cardinal O’Brien in Scotland, Archbishop Nichol in Westminister, the Archbishop of Canterbury. together with Phil the Greek (Prince Phillip) they and many others were represented at a gathering in Windsor Castle last November organised by an outfit called Alliance for Religious Conservations. the gathering was addressed by Bank Ki-Moon of UN fame.
ARC’s stated aim is to save the planet from MMGW. and there i was believing that the planet had been saved 2000 years ago.
OT – last month i signed a petition to 10 Downing Street about the corruption of CRU.
i got an interesting and contradictory email yesterday from our beloved leader’s office.
see http://www.number10.gov.uk/page22924 (hope this works).
wondering did any one elso get the same?
MISSING:
> All the pro-nuclear groups and industries supporting AGW
When is the cover going to be pulled back on how this is all about reviving the nuclear power industry?
anopheles (09:18:16) :
A whole lot of newspaper work is filling the spaces between the ads.
So anthropogenic global warming/climate change is what it used to be UFO’s stories for the MSM. That is precisely what it is: GW/CCH is an Unidentified Flying Object and Al Gore is, obviously a grown fat ET.
As a commenter on EuRef said, “it’s a pity the size of the spheres are not related to the amount of obtained funding.”
I suppose it would be difficult to display a tiny fraction of a pixel for most of the spheres on the left side of the chart.
Where can we find, on that graph, the SPONSORS of the IPCC and of all global warming/climate change ads and paper-ads?
Does anybody have the names to draw a complete flow-sheet, which could be called FOLLOW THE MONEY FLOW SHEET?
Odd.
A true networking map for the skeptics would simply be everyone connected to everyone.
A map for the AGW supporters would be more hierarchical, with IPCC and its priesthood at the top (Pachauri, Gore, Hansen), and control lines going down to lesser researchers (Mann, Jones) and the propaganda machine (Real Climate, major media representatives, and such).
It would be interesting to make a funding source chart too. Skeptics are almost all unpaid volunteers, while the AGW crowd has huge money lines from governments and “progressive” NGOs.
A little chart making could lay bare the root beliefs and desires of AGW, based on who is funding what — and why.
“Why is Oxfam so interested in this “narrative” of climate change? Why? WHY??”
Climate alarmism subsumes all other causes. If we were all going to die, drown, fry, because of a deranged climate, then what of the poor, the animals, wildlife, any object of charity? The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds says it “speaks out for birds and wildlife, tackling the problems that threaten our environment” It no longer cares how many birds are killed by wind turbines. Saving the planet is more important than saving birds.
Climate Alarm has become the Mother of all Causes. All “charities” have signed up to it. It becomes an end in itself: saving the planet. Actually, in reality, saving the climate change narrative is the end. Without it they are seen to be the fools and charlatans they are.
Aren’t you, Oxfam? Times up.
“A small group of dedicated people coming from a diverse range of positions and perspectives but working together as a loose federation held together by shared values and beliefs succeeded in accomplishing the most impressive PR coup of the 21st century.”
This seems about right, and even rather flattering I would have thought. What am I missing?
anopheles:
Genius!
Imran:
It’s worth taking a look at Charles Mackay’s ‘Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds’ to see how little things have changed since the mid 19th century (it’s probably been mentioned here a lot). Social pressure, argument from authority and desire to conform have, and will always influence mass belief, with or without religion or spirituality.
Paul Daniel Ash:
You’re right, neither the LeftFootForward article or the diagram specifically mention big-oil funding or top-down organisation of a sceptical movement. However responses to them here are more likely force of habit than any attempt to set up a ‘straw man’. Individuals sceptical of the AGW hypothesis who question the methods that have led to AGW conclusions along with the credibility of those who have declared the science ‘robust’ or ‘settled’ have for a long time been characterised as ‘deniers’ (with intended connotations), ‘flat earthers’, right-wing zealots and self interested earth-rapists. It is hardly surprising that they are sensitive to further attempts to pigeon hole them as a political group with an axe to grind rather than just sceptics in the true sense of the word. There is no need to set up a straw man as the real one stands tall as ever. Moreover many of the ‘big oil’ comments here are obviously intended as satire of this characterisation rather than serious criticism.
mrpkw (07:08:56) :
> Just for fun, has anyone drawn up a real version of this to show them how wrong they are??
Steve Mosher’s book. Steve has quoted the important stuff on leftfootforward.
Coulda saved them a lot of time, but then we wouldn’t have the flawed graph
to chuckle over.
Response to patrick healy (10:01:25) :
Holy cow. I followed your link. No. 10 is saying two completely contradictory things in the same letter.
This:
“CRU’s analysis of temperature records is not funded by, prepared for, or published by the Government. The resulting outputs are not Government statistics.”
And a paragraph later, this:
“That is why the Government funds a number of institutions, including the University of East Anglia, to carry out research into climate change science.”
What did Orwell say about the ability to believe in things even if they were contradictory? Maybe we can understand the IPCC if we can practice believing that two plus two equals three. Next week it will equal five.
“…by significantly influencing public perception of anthropogenic global warming by single-mindedly applying concerted and consistent pressure at critical junctures in the media ecology here in the UK and abroad.”
Economy of scale, replace the above with
“… were right.”
See how much money I could save them, all for free, aren’t we sceptics just so darn helpfull.
For me, this goes to the question of whether a cultural elite can simply “re-make” a culture by taking over key institutions and areas of society (education, arts, sciences, entertainment, news media). I have always assumed that this was so, even if it took several decades.
But I am beginning to think that culture has a life of its own, “like a living organism,” and cannot be simply molded top down by those determined and powerful enough to do so.
So Climategate, along with a small group of minds exchanging energy and information in the most natural way within the culture, is a major “coup” in their eyes. I think it might be a hopeful sign that society is not as artificial and as open to control by an elite as we might think.
ScottR (10:30:04),
Doublethink:
In the novel 1984, Orwell’s protagonist, Winston Smith, wonders if the State might declare “two plus two equals five” as a fact; he ponders whether, if everybody believes in it, does that make it true?
Dear Oxfam:
I can eliminate the need for your manufactured company by explaining it to you in simple terms.
In the future, your campaigns will continue to decrease in effectiveness, since the vast majority of your campaigning is based on lies, half truths, and inane political claptrap. What you call peer-to-peer news generation has now successfully outed many of your puppet and shadow organizations for what they are, and interested parties can now actually learn what you’re up to.
Oh yeah, and drop the conspiracy theory. There is no big giant propaganda monster trying to undermine you. That is called “projection”… since you have created a giant propaganda monster to undermine society, you assume that any push-back must be from a counter-organization. You’re wrong. The push-back is from normal, ordinary working people who are disgusted with what you are doing.