World War One/Notes from IWM comms workshop

Recently I was invited to a free workshop looking at how best to communicate around the centenary of the First World War. This was held on 15 May 2013 on HMS Belfast and delivered by the Imperial War Museum. The event was very useful and my notes are below. I hope we can encourage as many volunteers to get involved in this work as possible! Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 17:59, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Introduction

The Imperial War Museum hosted this workshop focused on communications and the centenary of the First World War for organisations with which they are working in partnership. A full list of attendees is available on request. This was a substantial group of around 100 people (much, much larger than I expected!). As materials from the various presentations is shared I will make useful things available here.

The main driver of the programme of events is going to be communities – what do they want? There's a real opportunity for smaller organisations in the partnership to lead on their own work. The approach from the IWM is certainly not a top down one. Their main priority is that any programming activity contains the necessary historical accuracy.

This in itself lends an excellent opportunity for Wikimedia UK as we have an active community, many of whom have an active interest in matters related to military history. But let's not neglect the social and technological change inspired by and instigated by the First World War as fascinating topics, too.

The main government leads on the programme are Maria Miller and Dr Andrew Murrison. From a departmental perspective the parent department is the DCMS.

The programme of events will not just relate to the centenary of the start of the war but will last for a period of several years, likely to culminate in 2019 with a commemoration of the final resolution of the war (the signing of the necessary peace treaties as opposed to the Armistice of 1918). Some key dates have been identified for the partnership and there is the intention to hold ceremonial events on these occasions. (Dates are for the commemorative events, not the actual events which were obviously 100 years earlier.)

4 August 2014 – Great Britain declares war on Germany 25 April 2015 – Gallipoli 31 May – 1 June 2016 – Battle of Jutland 1 July 2016 – The Battle of the Somme 11 November 2018 - Signing of the Armistice

Also as a part of the commemorations there is an extensive education programme. In England, this includes providing field trips to some of the key battlefields for secondary school pupils during the period 2014-19. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are currently considering similar initiatives. In Wales there is likely to be a strong emphasis on Welsh language and Welsh heritage. Northern Ireland is having a decade long programme running from 2012-22 and is working closely with the Republic of Ireland.

Audience research and awareness

The think tank British Future was commissioned to conduct some audience research. More details of this will follow, once their share their materials. The below comments are from my notes. The research found that people tend to think that commemorating WWI is very important but the general feeling is also that they don't know enough about it. Only 66% of people could name the year that the conflict began. Women tend to know less about the war but are equally enthusiastic when it comes to learning about it. 77% of respondents from within schools (teachers / governors) felt that it is important to commemorate the centenary, both in school and society.

Opinions on how to mark the centenary tend towards both the apolitical and the non-celebratory. It was suggested by some respondents (of all backgrounds) that there is the potential for cultural tensions to develop as a result from commemoration. Poppy burning was specifically mentioned by some respondents which struck me as somewhat odd and marginalising.

Older people tend to be more confident in the knowledge and understanding of the war, younger people not so much. There was useful feedback that people with children think it is very important to engage their children with the topic and educate them. The key themes felt to be important around the conflict were its impacts on society and culture, such as universal suffrage and changing attitudes to women.

There is also an appetite for international collaboration and commemoration. This suggests there are good opportunities to work with other chapters on some co-ordinated efforts.

Due to the diversity of the audience with an interest in this topic it's important that we keep any public communications we do accessible and simple. Another odd quirk that came out during this session (from an audience member rather than the research) was a concern that there's going to be subtle pro-European integration undertones to some communications (especially in the political arena). To be this seems faintly paranoid to me but we should be careful to be neutral on this issue.

Some useful themes

At this point one of the resident historians at the IWM gave a short talk about the war and some themes that are useful to bear in mind. These are listed in bullets below.

• Road to war – a path deliberately chosen. There can sometimes be a perception that the war happened almost by chance and that the belligerents somehow drifted into conflict. This isn't the case. Many of the belligerents actively chose war at that time as they believed it was in their national interest.
• The outbreak of war changed the life of every British citizen. As well as the war itself, it led to other changes such as the introduction of paper money, daylight saving and regulated pub hours to name but three.
• Voluntary recruitment was a very British thing. Only the British army was (at least in the beginning) made up entirely of volunteers (hence the relatively small size of the British Expeditionary Force at the outbreak of war).
• Trench warfare. This is one of the most common associations that people have with WWI.
• The truly global nature of the conflict. This wasn't a war limited to European theatres but was worldwide.
• The Home Front. The war led to changes such as women taking a more active role in industry, the cause of universal suffrage, many towns losing a substantial proportion of their men to the war... for many reasons the Home Front is interesting.
• The Battle of the Somme. Seen by many as the most disastrous day in British Military history, 1 July 1916 saw the British army lose over 50,000 casualties in a single day. Many of the 'Pals' Battalions that enlisted upon the declaration of war were practically wiped out.
• The naval blockade. This is often overlooked but the blockade of the Royal Navy both protected British shipping and also prevented German ships from having access to the North Sea.
• Flight. For the first time, war took to the skies. Initially the role of planes was reconnaissance, which led to fighters to counter them... and so on.
• 1918 was the decisive year. After years of stalemate, 1918 saw the stalemate break and a return to a more open kind of warfare.

Tone and language

Tone and language when discussing WWI are very important. Firstly, it's important that there will be people of the mindset that we shouldn't even acknowledge the centenary because war is inherently bad and there's a danger of glorifying it. We must be accepting of this and sensitive.

With regards to the name of the war (The Great War, World War One, The First World War), Great War isn't really appropriate, simply because the word has changed in context and usage. The other two are equally fine. There's no real preference for either, although British English has tended to call it the First World War (but WWI in shorthand).

As far as language goes, there's an obvious need to be respectful and dignified. Words like commemorate, remember, research, understand, acknowledge are fine. Avoid using words like celebrate, fun, enjoy when describing events. Be neutral and respectful. Sombre and sombrero are only two letters apart but a world apart in tone.

Media interest in WWI does seem to be slowly building, with around one article or feature appearing a week at the moment. Topics like memorials, the Christmas truce, the Battle of the Somme, the appropriateness of commemoration and the causes of the war have all featured. Conversations are also fairly frequent on social media, too.

1914.org

1914.org is essentially an extranet for organisations looking to perform activity around the centenary. It has a public facing side but once registered as being from a partner organisation there is an area which holds lots of relevant resources, collections, freely licensed material and (coming soon) a communications toolkit, including a First World War Centenary logo that we can use on related materials.

A useful events / programme calendar is being developed (in partnership with Culture24 which will list all shared events and programmes related to the centenary. We will make use of this. It will be live around September time and we can begin making submissions then. More details will be shared once it's live. The BBC will also be using the content from that calendar to help plan their own activities.

Digital and press

Starting on October this year the partnership will begin sending monthly newsletters to subscribers (currently around 20k). The newsletter will feature content provided by partner organisations so there are good opportunities for us here. We must make sure we share content via the 1914.org extranet. Press releases will also be distributed via this system if they are uploaded to the editorial section.

The IWM is recruiting for a press officer to work specifically on the partnership and with partner organisations so this will be a useful resource. They are also developing a highlights listing on the extranet, networking events and a meet the press event. More information on these will follow.

As far as social media goes, the hashtag for tweets is #WWICentenary and the Facebook page is at https://www.facebook.com/FirstWorldWarCentenary