NGOs in Britain: A Handbook

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Appendixes: Impact of NGOs:

Figure1: Mention of Green NGOs in Hansard (1945-2006)

Figure 2: Mention of Green NGOs in Hansard per session since 1980

Figure 3: Mentions of Green NGOs in Hansard (%)

Figure 4: Average number of mentions of a given NGO per parliamentary session

Figure 5: Number of mentions of various environmental organisations in The Guardian (1945-2009).

Figure 6: Mentions of various environmental organisations in The Times (1945-2009)

 

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Figure 1: Mention of Green NGOs in Hansard (1945-2006)

Note: Research undertaken in the seasonal (paper) index of Hansard. The total number of mentions of a given NGO does not correspond to the actual number of mentions of that NGO in the (online) Commons Hansard Debates and Commons Written Answers. The paper index in fact is much more selective, and only mentions "the name of (...) organisations (...) when these constitute the overall subject of an item".

The figure above  clearly shows a peak in mentions of environmental organisations in the period around 1989. One can also "zoom" on the period 1980, to see this pattern even better (Figure 2):

 

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Figure 2: Mention of Green NGOs in Hansard per session since 1980

(same graph as above, but showing in more details the period since 1980)

 

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Figure 3: Mentions of Green NGOs in Hansard (%)

Notes: The number of mentions of organisations such as the National Trust, the Ramblers, the Soil association, the RSPB and RSPCA are for the whole period 1945-2006, while figures for WWF are only from 1960, for Friends of the Earth from 1971 and for Greenpeace from 1977 only. So Greenpeace, for example, has had slightly more mentions in Hansard than the National Trust, per session, as shown on the figure below.

 

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Figure 4: Average number of mentions of a given NGO per parliamentary session (only counting years during which the organisation has existed)

Note: Results for the National Trust include the National Trust Scotland (in fact, a large number of the mentions to the National Trust are relating to NT Scotland).

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Figure 5: Mentions of various environmental organisations in The Guardian (1945-2009).

 

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Figure 6: Mentions of various environmental organisations in The Times (1945-2009)

Notes : The figure above show the number of mentions of a given (green) organisation in the index of The Times, . Three important notes need to be taken into account:

1) There are a number of errors in the index, for example:

o   for some years, organisations like the RSPCA were listed in the index as having only two entries for that year; however, looking under "Animals and Birds, cruelty", the RSPCA is mentioned at least 5 times in heading of the article; this proves that at least for that year and that organisation, errors crept in; whenever possible, such errors  have been corrected.

o   for a given (and same) year, there might be both one entry in the index under, say 'World Wildlife Fund' and another one under Wildlife Fund, World; in that case, the two entries were added,  discounting when the same article was mentioned twice;

2) since the 1980s, perhaps from the purchase of the Times by R. Murdoch in 1981, the focus of the coverage of organisations seems to have changed, from a coverage of their ideas/actions to articles about scandals involving them. A qualitative analysis would probably yield more interesting information than the quantitative analysis detailed above which reflects as much changes in the newspaper than anything else.

3) Because of a strike, the paper shut down for nearly a year (December 1, 1978 - November 12, 1979).

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