Image: Blockade Australia activist Brad Homewood stopped operations at the Port of Melbourne in July 2023. Credit: Supplied, Blockade Australia.
Four new resources
Want to learn more about the uses of mainstream and social media in disruptive activism, hear the voices of First Nations and multicultural change makers in the climate movement, or read about Rising Tide’s approach to organising? Our 2024 Movement Monitor research fellows have put together some exciting new resources on the Australian climate movement and they’re ready to share their findings! Have a look through the resources below to find out what fellows Gerard Mazza, Michelle Prassad and Isabella Todd learnt over their 12 week fellowships.
How Disruptive Climate Campaigners use Social Media
By Gerard Mazza. How can direct action campaigners use social media? Here are 2 case studies from Australia – Blockade Australia and Disrupt Burrup Hub.
“The social media landscape can change quickly and unpredictably, and campaigners often find themselves at the mercy of opaque algorithms. It can be difficult for activist groups, often made of volunteers, to keep up to date with these changes while creating regular content across multiple platforms.”
How Disruptive Climate Campaigners use Mainstream Media
By Gerard Mazza. How should direct action campaigners approach mainstream media? 2 case studies from Australia – Blockade Australia and Disrupt Burrup Hub.
“Being willing to lean in to ‘negative’ coverage may help a campaign establish more of a media presence. Disrupt Burrup Hub, as well as receiving a higher proportion of coverage with negative sentiment than Blockade Australia in 2023, also received more than twice as much total media coverage, according to Meltwater data. This suggests there may be a trade-off between quantity and sentiment of coverage. Activists should consider this when designing their campaigns, and consider what approaches best suits their strategy.”
Case Study: Organising in Rising Tide, 2022-24
By Isabella Todd. How Rising Tide organises and mobilises to achieve broad movement appeal in the current activist landscape.
“We will build a community, an empowered community of resistance that will have so much more agency to deal with whatever is thrown our way over the coming decades. Folks, who will have an experience of campaigning, of action design, of community organizing, of having hard political conversations. That grows the agency of you as a citizen and that in itself is a good.”
Building Union and Climate Movement Coalitions with Dan Sherrell and Desiree Cai
By Isabella Todd. Tune into this episode of Commons Conversations where Movement Monitor Fellow Isabella Todd interviews Dan Sherrell, from the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and Desiree Cai, from the Tomorrow Movement. They discuss the lessons learnt from campaigning around a policy and legislation win, in the form of the 2024 founding of the Net Zero Authority. In particular they explore how this work brought together and strengthened relationships between unions, climate activists and others.
“The union movement and climate movement are two key pillars of that new alignment in the left and between progressives that we need in order to win change at the scale and speed that we need to solve the climate crisis, but also, all the other crises that we’re collectively feeling the brunt of right now.” – Desiree Cai, Tomorrow Movement
First Nations and Multicultural Voices from the Climate Movement
By Michelle Prassad. Explore recommendations and stories from First Nations and CALD communities in the climate justice movement in Australia.
“Globally, climate change disproportionately impacts marginalised communities due to systemic, economic, geographic, and social barriers. Their voices, however, continue to be underrepresented in decision-making processes and policy.”