Leverage Point #6: The structure of information flow (who does and does not have access to what kinds of information)
My inbox, the week before COP21 began. I ended up receiving upwards of 1,200 emails a day as the conference progressed.
I never thought the day would come – a blog post about emails.
Pretty much all of the stakeholders I’ve been interviewing are inundated with emails. These days, who isn’t? I didn’t consider the possibility that emails would play an important role in my research.
One of my interviewees, Dr. Michael Dorsey, told me in preliminary conversations that sometimes the most telling information is found in the most uninteresting places. He gave the example of researchers who look at Yellow Pages to tell trends in society based on the services and products that are most prominently advertised, and how these advertisements change year after year.
Could emails be one of those uninteresting yet telling things?
Many of us are constantly connected to emails – yet also constantly behind on handling our inbox overflow (I, for one, am one of these people). Emails have become so engrained with our daily life that we take them for granted, sometimes unaware of the access they are providing us.
Emails during COP conference are never-ending. I typically expect to receive about 300 emails a day during COPs – at COP21 in Paris, this peaked at about 1,200 daily emails.
The onslaught was extraordinary, mainly stemming from the many organizational network listservs I was on.
http://paristhisit.tumblr.com/post/134454263099/pulling-an-all-nighter-just-to-read-email
What I didn’t realize as I lamented at my ever-growing inbox in Paris was that the emails I was receiving were a privilege. Firstly, my ability to sift through all of them so quickly is a skill that many NGOs and front line communities – not to mention negotiators from smaller countries – might not have. Secondly, the fact that I had the networks and intel to know which listservs to be on meant that I had a certain level of familiarity and access to the UNFCCC.
Evan Weber, Executive Director of the U.S. Climate Plan, mentioned that email listservs were a potential source of information during COP conferences. Organizations can keep up with the different events and meetings being planned through the emails that are sent to these large groups of people. Those who aren’t on the right listservs might miss a very important message that could significantly hinder their ability to contribute to a campaign or participate in the negotiating process.
Dana Meadows mentions “the structure of information flow (who does and does not have access to what kinds of information” as a leverage point. Clearly, emails are such a leverage point. A large majority of my interviewees so far have mentioned that COP is an overwhelming and bewildering process – and, through controlling information flow, emails and listservs have a large role to play in making this process either more transparent, or more opaque.