When Advocacy Becomes an Echo Chamber

Catrin Söderberg, Head of Communications at Civil Rights Defenders in Sweden, tells me that the Access Project was “straight up our alleyway”. A Liberties-led capacity-building project to help NGOs resist authoritarianism by growing support for their causes, the Access Project slotted neatly into Civil Rights Defenders’ new direction since the Swedish elections, which saw a swell in support for the far-right party, the Swedish Democrats.

Through its project Backa Demokratin (Back Up Democracy), Civil Rights Defenders wanted to make the public aware of the shift happening in Swedish politics and its impact on rights and democracy, and find ways to combat the populist narrative. While the project had many successes, alongside backlash from their opponents, Catrin knew they were mostly talking to people who already supported their cause.

Reaching the Moveable Middle

For several years, Civil Rights Defenders had been contemplating how to reach the moveable middle - people who can be swayed in favour or against their causes, depending on the type of messaging that reaches them. But they lacked the knowledge to understand how people outside of their supporter base related to their causes, or what messages they would find persuasive.

Through its two phases of data collection - the social media study and focus group - the Access Project allowed Civil Rights Defenders to learn about the attitudes of Sweden’s moveable middle towards two of its causes, civic space and migration. According to Catrin, this gave them access to an unparalleled depth of analysis: “We haven't done this, haven't had access to the data or the research that we now have through this project.”

When human rights communicators are more comfortable talking to the public predominantly through the language of rights and legalese, the pivot towards values-based messaging can be met with some resistance. One of the Access Project’s unique aspects is the opportunity to test campaign materials in focus groups and see how participants respond. Catrin tells me, “That was really valuable because then we could really, you know, test these types of thoughts and ideas that we have had.”

When Catrin used what she had learnt during the Access Project to train other local NGOs working on civic space and migration, she says the workshop was “so fun and very well received”.

When Human Rights Meets Storytelling

Migration in particular has become a thorny topic in Sweden. According to Catrin, the insights from the focus groups helped her realise she needed to approach campaigns about migration through the lens of storytelling. Instead of focusing only on rights or hardships, Civil Rights Defenders created narratives that come back to the notion that “we're all people who just want to make a living, have a good life, be able to sleep securely at night, have a home, raise your family”.

2026 is an election year for Sweden. Catrin says Civil Rights Defenders intends to use their new persuasive messaging skills to be more proactive in its campaigning and to play a role in agenda setting, rather than always reacting. Swimming against the current of the “more repressive and harsher rhetoric” that has emerged in Swedish politics in the last two years, Civil Rights Defenders plans to “create a new narrative”. Changing the conversation around civic space will be “tricky”, Catrin acknowledges, because “people take it kind of for granted”.

Catrin tells me she’s already integrating these takeaways into her daily work: “Just as late as last week, actually, we were doing an email around this campaign. And the first copy, when I saw it, I was like, no, we need to, we need to change some wording here, because you didn't get that positive feeling. You didn't get the feeling of connection.”

Witnessing participants' reactions to Civil Rights Defenders' messaging in the focus groups taught Catrin a golden lesson she’ll keep in mind every time she talks to the public: “We have to show more why this matters to people”.

Resources for activists who want to learn more about persuasive messaging:

Case Study: Selecting Keywords to Map Audience Perceptions of Civic Space on Facebook

Sample Message on Migration from Civil Rights Defenders in Sweden

Croatian Partner Interview: Bringing Back Hope and Optimism to Human Rights Campaigns