Increasing Audiences

Along with the mission statement and key messages, the 2012-2016 Communications Strategy (CERN, 2011) also develops and further distinguishes their intended audiences, more so then the previous Communications Plans. CERN’s 1954 Convention (Amaldi,

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1955) outlines in Article II.1 and II.3 their two mandated audiences, the High-Energy Physics community and CERN’s Member states:

Article II.1 “The Organization shall provide for collaboration among European States in nuclear research of a pure scientific and fundamental character, and in research essentially related thereto. The Organization shall have no concern with work for military requirements and the results of its experimental and theoretical work shall be published or otherwise made generally available.”

(Amaldi, 1955, p.4) Article II.3 (c) “….CERN shall organise and sponsor international co-operation in nuclear research, including cooperation outside the laboratory, promoting contacts between scientists and interchange with other laboratories and institutes.”

(Amaldi, 1955, p.5) While this statement does not specifically refer to openness, it’s clear how such ideas could develop within the organisation. With collaborative practices and dissemination of results mandated within the Convention (Amaldi, 1955), a culture of openness has been well established at CERN. Yet, how this is enacted is not clear within the Convention (Amaldi, 1955).

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While the CERN Convention (Amaldi, 1955) only mandates for two audiences, the 2006 Communication Plan identified seven further ‘key target audiences’ (CERN, 2006). These were:

 The general public  The physics community

 Science and technology decision makers  Industry

 The CERN community  Schools

 Local community

In the 2009 Communications Plan (CERN, 2008), similar broad target audiences were outlined, those being:

 Science and technology opinion formers;

 The CERN Community (including scientific, administrative and professional staff, contractors working on site and users);

 The local community;

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 Educational Systems, primarily high school level;  The general public.

In the 2012-2016 strategy (CERN, 2011), 11 target audiences were outlined, this time with the desired strategic outcomes of the communications made clear.

1. The CERN Community: Develop a sense of belonging and foster an appreciation of the importance of strategic communications;

2. The General Public: Generate trust in and develop advocacy for CERN;

3. The Local Community: Engage in dialogue. Develop trust and advocacy as well as provide access to information of relevance to CERN’s neighbours. Promote the benefits of CERN’s presence in the area;

4. The Media: To be an authoritative, timely and open source of information about CERN and particle physics;

5. Potential Sponsors: Increase private financial contributions for CERN’s non-core activities;

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7. Educational Systems: Develop knowledge of CERN’s research and physics.

Develop an understanding of benefits of research to society and promote physics and science as a career choice;

8. The Cultural and Artistic Community: Engage with the arts. Collaborate with cultural entities and artists. Protect CERN’s brand and the integrity of CERN’s content;

9. Younger Children: Generate basic awareness of CERN’s research and its broad purpose. Generate interest in basic science and scientific method. Inspire young people to develop a passion for learning and discovery;

10. Industry: Generate awareness that CERN is an organisation that companies of all sizes can do business;

11. Job Seekers: Generate awareness of the range of opportunities available at CERN. Position CERN as a great place to work.

All of these audiences are strategically important groups for the Communications Group to engage with. As Borchelt and Neilson (2014) describe, interacting with such

stakeholders is crucial in order to gain, maintain and repair relationships between these actors and the organisation. The 2012 -2016 Communications Strategy (CERN, 2011) is the first to go some way to outline some of the public relations activities aimed at these groups (Table 4.1).

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Table 4.1. Audience/ activity matrix (adapted from CERN Communications Strategy 2012-2016, CERN, 2011).

Community  Activity 

1.CERN 2.Public 3.Local 4.Media 5.Sponsors 6.Alumni 7.Edu 8.Culture 9.Kids 10.Industry 11.Job seekers Website + + + + + + + + + + + Social media + + + Spokesperson + + Press Office + + + CERN Courier + + + Internal Comms + Brochures + + + + + + + + + Annual Report + + + + + + Photo/ Video + + + + + + + + Graphic design + + + + + + + + + + + Events + + + + + + + + + + Exhibitions + + + + + + + + Newsletters + + Corporate info support + + + + + + + + + + + Copy editing + + + + + + + + + + + Translation + + + + + + + + + +

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The various activities outlined in Table 4.1 are at the core of the groups ‘trust portfolio’ (Borchelt and Neilson, 2014) and their individual Programme level components (See Chapter 2, Section 2.4.5). This provides a useful basis line for tracing and evaluating the public relations functions carried out by the Communications Group.

As Table 4.1 shows, the media are one of the best catered for audiences, with the majority of activities aimed at this group. Similarly, Kallfass (2009) found a great deal of scientific public relations practitioner’s time is spent cultivating contacts in the media, including providing Press Releases and background material to journalists. The focus on the media in this way may well justify their importance of this actor within the Circuit of Mass Communication (Miller et al., 1998).

The significance of this relationship with the media was also demonstrated during the interview with the Head of Communications:

IV: “Would you say there’s an audience you target more than others?” HC: “The media. […] We put a lot of effort into journalists, I mean both through Press Releases and through site visits and setting up events for them as well as just briefing them. So, you know, in the lead up to big events I will phone many, many journalists and talk to many, many journalists about this, what’s coming up, so that they can get, they have time to get their stories right. […] There are a number of journalists who I know extremely well and, you know, I’ve been doing this job for years and some of them change quickly and some of

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them don’t. So there are people who I speak to quite regularly about what’s happening here and will tell them things on and off the record as necessary and can trust them absolutely implicitly not to do anything with that information.”

(Head of Communications, interview 22.11.12) As Blobaum (2014) explains, trust plays an important role in the various relationships between journalists and the individuals and organisations outside of journalism. As the Head of Communications describes, the relationships he has built with various

journalists over the years means he can trusts them with otherwise sensitive information.

Along with the media, another group that the Communications Group works closely with are the various physics institutes around the world. As the Head of Communications describes, this relationship is important not just for CERN, but for particle physics as a whole.

“We all recognise, I think, the communications people in the labs, that we are stronger together and that we are, we all do depend on each other. So even though CERN is particularly strong in the particle physics world at the moment, I don’t take it for granted that will always be that way. I think it’s vital for CERN’s

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future prosperity that particle physics thrives in the United States as well; if it dies in one region it could easily die in another, so we work well together.”

(Head of Communications, interview 22.11.12) The importance of these relationships became apparent during the observations at the InterAction and EPPCN/IPPOG meetings, which involved the heads of communications for the top physics labs in the world, funding agencies in CERN Member States and communicators for the LHC experiments. It was clear across both meetings the importance of the various physics bodies working together, and the benefits such relationships can bring. For example, with the 4th _{of July 2012, Higgs update, this}

relationship was crucial for the various laboratories and institutions, who relied on the CERN Communications Group, and the Press Office in particular, to provide them with information surrounding the event ahead of time. During the meetings, representatives from the UK, Germany and the Netherlands expressed the benefits of their relationship with the Communications Group. As the UK representative described during their presentation:

“Work with [CERNS’s Head of Communication], always. If we didn’t know what they were doing, and they didn’t know what we were doing, it would have been a mess. […] We couldn’t have done it without them.”

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Working with the CERN Communications Group in advance allowed these

representatives to plan media events, brief local and national journalists, prepare their own Press Releases and acquire quotes from researchers in their own institutes. As such, these events also help gain greater coverage for CERN and the work carried out there. This also demonstrates the role of the CERN Communications Group outside of CERN, as part of a broader, transnational network of research institutions.

Much like the relationship with journalists, the Communications Group has to trust that information shared with these external communications groups will not be released ahead of time. As outlined in the 2009-2013 Communications Plan (CERN, 2008), the procedure at CERN for communicating results involves feeding back to the scientific community before being released to the public. As such, with the 4th _{of July 2012 Higgs}

update, the scientific conference held at CERN, as part of International Conference on High-Energy Physics45 _{in Melbourne, was to be the first confirmation of their findings,}

made to the physics community. Press Releases and other ‘information subsidies’ (Gandy, 1982) were effectively under embargo at this point. Only after this conference were any Press Releases permitted to go live. As Kiernan (1997) outlines, the use of embargoes in this way allows for greater coordination of information and its release. This does however, require all those involved to follow the plan. If somebody was to

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break this embargo, this could cause problems from those who have otherwise stuck with it. Such breaking of embargoes has occurred within the sciences, for example, with NASA’S life on Mars announcement (Holliman, 2000). This was also the case with the 4th

of July 2012 Higgs update.

With the science seminar scheduled to take place at 8.00am, GMT, and the

announcement to be made closer to 9.00am, the UK representative wanted to make sure the information was out there to make it onto the breakfast news within that window. As a result, they decided to release the information in the UK before the science seminar had finished, during the embargo period.

“We had a fundamental question at the very beginning, do we sit and wait for the seminar to finish, knowing full well what is going to be said, or do we say this is a media event and get someone to say “what they are about to tell you is this” […] So we cheated, but we told CERN we were going to cheat and we had a very careful consideration with the physics groups as well.”

(UK representative at EPPCN/IPPOG meeting, 30.11.12) This, in turn, caused issues with reporting in other Member States. Representatives from both Finland and Norway reported that media outlets in their countries picked up the UK reporting of the event, instead of their own. This is a real challenge when it comes to the reporting of a transnational event, with local requirements challenging attempts at a

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coordinated release of information. As CERN’s Head of Communications describes, such an event can also put strains on relationships with other media professionals.

“As [the UK representative] said, they cheated, they announced it before we did. That caused problems for other people. It meant they couldn’t tell their story the way they wanted. […] One journalist said ‘It was great, but it was a mess because we played the game, we respected your embargo, and it was very frustrating to see this spoken about everywhere else before we were allowed to say anything’.”

(Head of Communications at EPPCN/IPPOG meeting, 30.11.12) Further tensions were apparent during the discussion between researchers from the collaborations and the representatives from the member states. The main problem being CERN’s desire to announce to the scientific community before the media, as outlined in the 2009-2013 Communications Plan (CERN, 2008). This issue came to a head at the EPPCN/IPPOG meeting, during a discussion between the UK representative and a CMS researcher:

UK representative: “If you have a 45 minute seminar building up to an announcement, the media hate you.”

CMS Researcher: “We’ve been working in CMS for 20 years building up to that announcement, I don’t think the media can complain.”

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Overall, document analysis, along with attendance at the EPPCN/IPPOG and InterActions meetings, provided an extremely useful insight into the relationships the CERN

Communications Group has with a number of their stakeholders. The observations in particular added a great deal to the pilot study, allowing the researcher to see how practices are enacted and some of the issues facing the Communications Group. Yet, the majority of examples were focused around the working of the Communications Group during a ‘heightened state’, where communication activities were more frequent. One aim of the main study therefore was to observe the Communications Group in an otherwise ‘steady state’, and the continuous activities aimed at these stakeholders.