COMMITTEE PARTICIPATION: A MULTIMEDIA APPROACH
Table one: Communication costs for 2011-2012 public meetings 2012 Meeting $28,147.84
Communications: Advertising Stats cards
Shaw Broadcasting
Livestream (online chat) TOTAL
1,432.00 3,344.00 1,127.72
$34,051.56
1,352.00 3,349.50 1,129.03
$31,730.84
2011 Meeting $25,900.31
greater staff involvement in 2011 than had been the case in prior years. It bears noting that the 2012 meeting required significantly less staff support than in 2011 as a result of the lessons learned in the previous year.
meeting has been held in various constituencies around the province of Alberta. Members of the public could participate in the meetings in person, observing and/or asking questions if they wished, and the proceedings were recorded in Hansard. The 2010 annual public meeting had an especially low turnout, with only two members of the public attending. This low attendance combined with higher- than-expected television viewership numbers prompted the committee to re-evaluate its strategy for involving the public in its annual meeting. In 2011 the committee decided to continue with live broadcast of the proceedings – approximately 6,000 people viewed the proceedings on television in 2010 – to advertise for in-person attendance and for the first time to webcast proceedings live on the Internet. The webcast was accompanied by an online chat feature, enabling participants to log on during the meeting to chat and put questions to the committee about various aspects of the Fund.1 The committee adopted this new communications strategy for both its 2011 and 2012 annual public meetings. The 2012 attendance results are as follows, with 2011 results in parentheses:
• Live audience: 25, five of whom posed a total of nine questions/com- ments (20, seven of whom posed nine questions/comments). All live audience questions/comments were responded to. • TV audience: approximately 16,000 (5,000)2 • Online audience: 33 (43)
• Chat participants: • 2011 – 43 total participants, nine of whom generated 68 questions/ comments. The committee respond- ed to seven questions/comments. • 2012 – 33 total participants, 14 of whom generated 52 questions/com- ments. The committee responded to 19 questions/comments.3 •
Overall, the committee and
meeting organizers considered the 2011 public meeting4
a success.
In contrast to previous years’ experiences, there were sufficient questions and information to fill
“The multimedia approach has proven to be a cost- effective method to reach larger audiences than in the past.“
the entire two hours and therefore no need to shorten the meeting. The in-person audience raised a number of questions while the 43 online chatters also put a number of questions to the committee. The committee answered a considerable number of the questions from both chatters and the in-person audience, making for a better and more interactive forum in which to discuss Fund activities. In 2012 television viewership increased substantially, to an
estimated 15,000 viewers. In-person attendance and online participation remained relatively static, as is indicated in statistics above.
Costs Table one displays the communications costs – i.e., costs for advertising, broadcast, webcast and chat room – for the 2011 and 2012 public meetings. Advertising was the greatest
single cost while the production of “stats cards,” which contain some overview details about the Fund, was a relatively minor expense. It is fair to say that the costs for providing the webcast/chat feature have not been prohibitive at just over $1,000/year while the broadcast cost remained at approximately $3,300 per annum. The deployment of staff presents
a somewhat different story, at least for the 2011 public meeting, at which the chat room and webcast features were introduced. The following staff worked the night of the meeting, largely to support webcast and chat room operations (total hours on the project are indicated, where possible, in parentheses):
• Two IT staff (approximately 50 hours),
• Three Communications staff (ap proximately 90 hours) and
• Three managers. Despite these figures, it is difficult
to quantify exactly how much extra time and effort went into executing the operational requirements of the committee’s multimedia approach, but clearly the introduction of the chat room feature required much
Observations: Benefits, Opportunities and Risks The question now is whether the costs described above were justified in terms of enabling the accomplishment of the committee’s objective of increasing the audience for and participation in its annual public meeting. Clearly, the live broadcast of proceedings substantially increased the audience for the committee’s public meeting, as noted above. The reasons for this appear straightforward. Watching proceedings on television is more convenient than attending in person, and the live broadcast was available to hundreds of thousands of potential viewers throughout most of the province.5 The webcast and the online chat
added to the overall viewership of the meeting, but it should be noted that the online chat offers a greater benefit than modestly increasing the public meeting’s audience. In addition to providing a greater reach and therefore a larger potential audience than the television broadcast, the online chat offers an element of interactivity that is not possible through television viewership. This interactive participation mirrors and perhaps even supersedes what can be done in person. At the public meeting online chatters may pose questions for the committee’s response or make comments that they wish the committee to address. Alternatively, chatters may opt to discuss the meeting proceedings among themselves. In sum, the online chat offers wider access to the meeting proceedings than is feasible through the current local broadcast, access that is ideal for a meeting that deals with matters which are of a provincial or even national scope. Just as importantly, the chat enables interactive participation, which is not feasible through television
The Parliamentarian | 2013: Issue One | 53
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