An Unprecedented Global Communications Campaign for the Event Horizon Telescope First Black Hole Image

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An Unprecedented Global Communications Campaign Best for the Event Horizon Telescope First Black Hole Image Practice

Lars Lindberg Christensen Colin Hunter Eduardo Ros European Southern Observatory Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics Max-Planck Institute für Radioastronomie [email protected] [email protected] eros@mpifr-bonn.mpg.del

Mislav Baloković Katharina Königstein Oana Sandu Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Radboud University European Southern Observatory Smithsonian [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Sarah Leach Calum Turner Mei-Yin Chou European Southern Observatory European Southern Observatory Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and [email protected] [email protected] Astrophysics [email protected] Nicolás Lira Megan Watzke Joint ALMA Observatory Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Suanna Crowley [email protected] Smithsonian HeadFort Consulting, LLC [email protected] [email protected] Mariya Lyubenova European Southern Observatory Karin Zacher Peter Edmonds [email protected] Institut de Radioastronomie de Millimétrique Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & [email protected] Smithsonian Satoki Matsushita [email protected] Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics Valeria Foncea [email protected] Joint ALMA Observatory [email protected] Harriet Parsons East Asian Observatory Masaaki Hiramatsu [email protected] Keywords National Astronomical Observatory of Japan Event Horizon Telescope, media relations, [email protected] black holes

An unprecedented coordinated campaign for the promotion and dissemination of the first black hole image obtained by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration was prepared in a period spanning more than six months prior to the publication of this result on 10 April 2019. This article describes this unusual campaign and its outcomes.

Due to the viral nature of the science and for peaceful international • The IRAM 30-meter telescope dissemination of this result, we believe it collaboration. • The James Clerk Maxwell Telescope is reasonable to conclude that over half (JCMT) of the world’s population now know that • The Large Millimeter Telescope Alfonso humankind has taken an image of a black Introduction Serrano (LMT) hole. The potential global readership • The Submillimeter Array (SMA) was on the order of billions, possibly as On 10 April 2019, the EHT Collaboration • The Submillimeter Telescope (SMT) much as 4.5 billion. The result trended as announced the first-ever image of a black • The South Pole Telescope (SPT) number one on Twitter globally, reached hole, specifically M87* in the galaxy the top spot on Google News, got its Messier 87. The data were obtained by Astrophysicist and author Ethan Siegel1 own Google Doodle, and was the most sophisticated interferometry using eight from Forbes elegantly sums up the dis- popular story ever published for many radio telescopes: covery itself: scientific organisations involved. The authors believe this has led to a • Atacama Large Millimeter/submillime- The story of the Event Horizon Telescope significant boost for the EHT, for ter Array (ALMA) is a remarkable example of high-risk, the involved observatories and • Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment high-reward science. During the 2009 organisations, for astronomy, for (APEX) decadal review, their ambitious proposal

CAPjournal, No. 26, October 2019 11 An Unprecedented Global Communications Campaign for the Event Horizon Telescope First Black Hole Image

After months of preparation, six coordinated press conferences began at 13:00 UTC:

• Brussels (English, with at least 12 satellite events2) • Santiago (Spanish) • Shanghai (Mandarin) • Taipei (Mandarin) • Tokyo (Japanese) • Washington, D.C. (English)

At exactly 13:07 UTC the image was unveiled at all press conferences either through a state-of-the-art zoom video3 (produced by ESO) or through showing the black hole image. News of this result was covered in most major media around the world and went viral on social media. This led to unprecedented coverage.

The Preparation of the Campaign

In the summer of 2017, it became clear that although the recent EHT observing campaign of the previous spring could possibly generate groundbreaking science results, the collaboration had not yet developed a communications strategy to announce them. In July of that year, following substantive early conversations, support and encour- agement from the National Science Figure 1. Some of the many newspaper front pages on 11 April 2019. Credit: Eduardo Ros Foundation (NSF), the EHT Collaboration began working on a communications plan. With ongoing declared that there would be an image of understand. This is just the beginning. support from NSF, the communications a black hole by the end of the 2010s. A Never has so much been gained by plan centred on the existing EHT Outreach decade later, we actually have it. That’s observing a region where nothing, not Working Group (OWG) in order to an incredible achievement. even light, can escape. establish an inclusive, collaborative and representative approach It relied on computational advances, the An unprecedented coordinated cam- that involved dozens of independent construction and integration of a slew paign between the involved institutions institutions. After nearly 18 months of plan of radio telescope facilities, and the for the promotion of this high-profile development, on 1 October 2018, the OWG cooperation of the international science story began in October 2018, brought together media officers from the community. Atomic clocks, new with weekly alignment video confer- collaborating institutions to launch the computers, correlators that could link up ences amongst all layers of the collab- unprecedented campaign for promotion different observatories, and many other oration (sometimes several a week). A and dissemination. new technologies needed to be inserted big focus of the work was confidentiality into every one of the stations. You needed since the result had one singular visual By October 2018 a group represent- to get permission. And funding. And — the image of the black hole — which ing more than 100 communicators testing time. And, beyond that, would essentially give away the entire and communication-savvy scientists permission to observe on all the different story if leaked, possibly nullifying all the from the involved EHT institutions were telescopes simultaneously. preparation. The excitement of the work meeting in weekly video conferences led was significant and the tension high while by the EHT communications coordinator But all of this happened, and wow, did preparing to communicate the results Mislav Baloković. A Teamwork4 site was it ever pay off. We are now living in the widely and at the same time keeping set up by the Perimeter Institute to allow era of black hole astronomy, and the sensitive information with big visual the group to collaborate. As the weeks event horizon is there for us to image and impact from leaking early. went by the scientists in this ad-hoc

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collaboration assumed a more and more Turner took the lead on writing up a joint science leading up to the result were leading role in the communications work, core press release with allocated spaces unfortunately never finalised and possibly due to the high stakes at play. for “localised” content and quotes published. In general, the excitement among all that could highlight and promote the the collaborators was very high due to individual participating organisa- It was agreed to send out a media the potential impact of the result. The tions and telescopes. This text was advisory announcing the press confer- primary focus was on limiting access then jointly edited by the participating ences on 1 April, despite some differing to the image and result to as few peo- communicators and scientists over the opinions among EHT partners about ple as possible, and secondarily on the course of several weeks. Collating and the form and timing of this communica- production of content. The OWG meet- integrating the many comments was a tion. On the one hand, it was deemed ings established a framework for devel- herculean effort and allowed every- necessary to give journalists time to oping content, strategies and deadlines, one in the collaboration to share their reserve flights to participate in the press as well as opportunities to share those suggestions, concerns and views. Most conferences. On the other hand, the long products. of the press releases published, notably time period before making the major NSF, ESO, the East Asian organisations announcement increased the chances Starting in January 2019, parallel and the EHT Collaboration, respected of information leaks. This risk was weekly meetings led by NSF focused the agreed format, but not all — mainly countered by the guideline that collabora- specifically on coordinating the inter- those from organisations who were not tion members completely avoid talking to national press conferences, including part of the above-mentioned group video the press before the press conferences, precise logistical details. Managers of the conferences and hence were not aware even on background. Some science press conferences, as well as some scien- of the substantial alignment efforts. journalists were sharply critical of this tists and representatives from the relevant guideline because it seemed unusually institutions, including EHT Director While this approach allowed a restrictive, and there was also concern Sheperd Doeleman, participated. broad range of opinions to come that competing journalists would receive This burgeoning team did not have together, it dramatically increased the access to embargoed information, based the benefit of an established formal, coordination workload and would have on experience with past announcements legal or administrative structure or any benefitted from a more predefined in astronomy. Other journalists accepted pre-existing leadership hierarchy (apart approval structure. However, the level the challenge of using publicly availa- from the EHT science collaboration). of coordination did allow for a very ble information and wrote templates of Nevertheless, they proved capable of broad, constructive and collaborative articles with the assumption that the pro- coming to agreement, and making and approach, leading to many translations ject had succeeded. In the end, the lack abiding by major decisions regarding the (including into Hawaiian, the first such of leaked information was an impres- public announcements. case) and a common pool of impressive sive achievement by the collaboration. visuals (including a Japanese comic5). The 10 days of advance notice gave The European Southern Observatory A set of in-depth scientist-led factsheets journalists enough time to travel and pre- (ESO) Public Information Officer Calum about the EHT and the history of the pare, and it created a sense of suspense in the media with lots of (sometimes tangential) rumours and interest which in itself generated additional visibility to EHT and its partners (anecdotally, about one-third of all media coverage was registered prior to the event for the Brussels press conference).

Such a coordinated public announcement of this scale had never been attempted before in astronomy. This coordination proved remarkably successful. The fact that there were no major leaks of information prior to the 10 April press conferences is demonstrated by the fact that even the media was surprised to learn that results were of M87*, not the widely anticipated Sgr A* observations.

Figure 2. The press conference in Brussels. Credit: European Research Council Executive Agency

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Press Conferences live stream in the history of Le Monde and ESO’s Director General, Xavier and had a larger online audience than Barcons. It featured presentations from Brussels France’s victory at the FIFA World Cup researchers behind the result (ALMA’s The Brussels press conference (Figure 2) 2018 for football when more than 45 Violette Impellizzeri and MIT Haystack was held at the European Commission’s 000 people connected. The live stream Observatory’s Geoff Crew). (EC) Berlaymont building. Over 60 jour- also appeared on Euronews, Le Figaro, nalists attended the press conference Bloomberg, Sky, El Confidencial, Evening This event was intended for Spanish- in Brussels, while some 120 registered Standard, Agenzia ANSA, Science Alert, speaking journalists from the local and to follow it online. The YouTube live feed Le Soir, La Libre, CNET Magazine, international media. The conference reached a peak of some 200 000 viewers. Wired.it, T-online.de, Sputnik News, was streamed online9 and on Facebook, After the press conference, European Observador.pt, Il Fatto Quotidiano, The YouTube and Twitter-Periscope (54 Research Council (ERC) President Jean- Independent and BBC News. 000 on Facebook, 155 000 viewers on Pierre Bourguignon and Nobel Laureate Youtube, and more than 7000 on Twitter Brian Schmidt opened an EHT exhibition At least 92 TV channels, including BBC (incl. 2400 Live)). The event was attended in the same venue. News, Sky News, Deutsche Welle, TVS by at least 35 journalists. The JAO web- Slovenia, ARD and ARTE produced 648 site had 75 000 hits on 10 April and more According to the internal analysis by the TV reports using live satellite broadcast than 18 000 at the beginning of the press ERC press service using Meltwater and from the press conference or the audio- conference. The JAO ALMA Instagram Akio Spotter, the ERC has never had visual material prepared in advance channel doubled from 25 000 to 53 000 this kind of success before. The press by the ERC and Commission’s AV followers and the result had at least 487 conference in Brussels was broadcasted service and distributed on the day of the mentions in Chilean media. live by the EC audio-visual service. The announcement. press conference YouTube stream6 has Shanghai now been seen by more than 3.1 million The result meant that science was The Shanghai press conference (Figure viewers and has had 13.6 million impres- solidly “put on the agenda” in Brussels, 4) was hosted by Shanghai Astronomical sions, 72 000 shares, 62 900 interac- the European hotspot for politicians and Observatory (SHAO) at 21:00 CST. tions, 58 000 likes and 1600 comments. news consumers in general, and also Jinliang Hou, Deputy Director of SHAO, It quickly became the third most viewed that science, possibly for the first time, hosted the press conference with video on the EUTube account. It was the proved itself to the sceptical Brussels presentations by Zhiqiang Shen, Director top video for all black hole videos on press corps, which is an important cul- of SHAO, and Rusen Lu, researcher and YouTube on the day of the announce- tural change at the EC. Head of the Max Planck Partner Group ment. In terms of engagement, it was the at SHAO. Suijian Xue, Deputy Director- most successful EUTube7 video ever. Santiago General of The National Astronomy The press conference in Santiago Observatory of China (NAOC) was also More than 500 entities embedded the (Figure 3) was hosted by the Joint in attendance. live stream on their websites. Le Monde ALMA Observatory (JAO) and ESO, hosted more than 2 hours 30 minutes of and was introduced by the Atacama The event was covered by almost all live streaming, which according to the Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array of the major Chinese media broad- Le Monde website8 became third best (ALMA) Director, Sean Dougherty, casters and popular media compa-

Figure 3. Attendees at the press conference in Santiago. Credit: F. Pizarro/ Figure 4 The Shanghai press conference. Credit: Shanghai Astronomical ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO) Observatory

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nies including CCTV, People’s Daily, conference live stream has now been science centres in Japan posted it as a XinhuaNet, China News, China News viewed more than 1.6 million times. part of their exhibitions. A simple poster Week, Guangming Online, Sina Net, and There were more than 50 reports shown to show the result made by NAOJ (only Science and Technology Daily. Media in Taiwanese media on 10 and 11 April. in Japanese) was also widely used by tracking up to the end of April indicated More impressively, the President of science centres. that the video of the press conference Taiwan, Ing-Wen Tsai, praised the has been watched over 50 million times, success of the imaging of the black hole The result was mentioned in the with over 5000 stories covering the press shadow on her Instagram account. regular press conferences of the conference and 52 million interactions Japanese Minister of Education, Culture, related to the press conference on Tokyo Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) various platforms (e.g. Weibo, People’s The Tokyo Press Conference (Figure 6) and the Chief Cabinet Secretary13. Daily Online, XinhuaNet, CCTV website was held at the Tokyo Garden Terrace and Tiktok). Kioi Conference facility. Although it was Washington, D.C. inconveniently late in the evening in The Washington, D.C. press confer- Alongside the press conference, SHAO Japan (22:00 JST)), 61 journalists and ence (Figure 7) was held at the National produced a series of informative 14 TV crews attended the event. The Press Club and featured NSF Director scientific interpretations and eight National Astronomical Observatory of France Córdova, EHT Director Sheperd videos about the black hole. Media track- Japan (NAOJ) live stream on YouTube10 Doeleman, and astronomers Dan ing up to 18 April indicated that these and niconico11 had about 85 000 Marrone, Avery Broderick and Sera articles were read more than 1 mil- views. The press release on the NAOJ Markoff. More than 56 reporters were lion times on the social media platform website12 had up until 30 April almost 300 in the room (roughly the same as in WeChat and these videos were viewed 000 pageviews. The major Japanese TV Brussels). Audiences included more 3.3 million times using TikTok and Xigua stations NHK and TV Asahi live-streamed than 735 000 viewers on YouTube and Video platform. the press conference on their app and 520 000 on Facebook Live. The YouTube Twitter account. The tweet by @ALMA_ stream14 has now accumulated 1.3 million Taipei Japan of the image gained 960 000 views, 22 000 likes, 758 comments, 5.3 The press conference in Taipei (Figure 5) impressions and 32 000 engagements, million impressions, and 32 667 shares. was hosted by the Academia Sinica both the highest numbers achieved in the The Facebook Live feed now has 716 000 (AS) and the Ministry of Science and eight-year history of the account. views and 60 000 likes and reactions. Technology (MOST) in Taiwan. It was Other press conferences streamed the introduced by the President of Academia NAOJ produced a comic to intro- Washington, D.C. press conference as Sinica, James Liao, and featured duce a brief history of radio interfer- the start of their programmes. presentations from researchers Asada ometry and the EHT project in both Keiichi and Masanori Nakamura. The Japanese and English. The comic was Following the press conference, NSF conference was streamed online through distributed through Twitter and the NAOJ facilitated on-camera interviews with Facebook and Youtube (956 000 viewers website. The tweets of the comic (two such outlets as NBC Nightly News, on Youtube and 620 000 on Facebook, posts) gained 680 000 impressions and CBS Evening News and BBC News; which corresponds to about 7% of 53 000 engagements in total. The comic calls with the New York Times, the Los the Taiwanese population). The press was also distributed as a PDF and several Angeles Times and others; and in-depth

Figure 5. The journalists at the Taipei press conference. Credit: Academia Figure 6. The press conference in Tokyo. Credit: NAOJ Sinica

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Bennet Group in Hawaii reported a similar number of theoretical maximum readership for a narrower subset of the storyline: “Aggregate Readership: 4 673 590 910 for reflecting media results directly attributable to Bennet Group’s collaboration with James Clerk Maxwell Telescope and Submillimeter Array”. Cision Analytics identified more than 1000 news articles mentioning both EHT and NSF, with a theoretical maximum audience of up to 2.2 billion unique viewers. Such theoretical readership numbers are naturally only indicative and should be used with caution and significant caveats15.

Several of the people involved with EHT communication made what we nick- named the “taxi-driver test”: asking random laypeople about black holes (for instance, in taxis), which led to a Figure 7. The US press conference panellists. Credit: National Science Foundation perceived near-complete coverage in the awareness of the story among random people in the western world (N = ~100). conversations with National Geographic, Director Colin Lonsdale and EHT the Associated Press, Reuters, USA scientist Katie Bouman, to testify on the The result reached the top spot on Today, Xinhua, The Washington Post and science results before a full commit- Google News (Figure 8) and Google dozens of other leading outlets from tee hearing of the House Committee on Trends (Figure 9) show an interesting across the globe (Figure 10). Through Science, Space, and Technology, which two-day peak with a relatively long tail of coordination with media officers at was also broadcast on the TV network six to seven days of sustained interest. partnered U.S. research institutions, C-SPAN. some of which streamed the Washington, D.C. event, regional press engagement Impact in Some Selected Cases was also strong — more than 145 U.S. Press Coverage broadcast affiliates aired reports that The collaboration’s website16 received mentioned both EHT and NSF. Analytics Naturally, the impact of a worldwide unprecedented traffic in the days identified a total of 400 broadcast news campaign of this magnitude is hard to leading up to the press conference, stories, with half mentioning NSF. measure. The viewership numbers are the day of the event itself, and the reported in the preceeding summaries immediate period that followed. During In the afternoon, the presenters gave and the hundreds of front pages from March 2019 the website received roughly a briefing sponsored by the House of around the world, some of which were 600 visitors daily, but on 8 and 9 April, Representatives Committee on Science, collected by Eduardo Ros (Figure 1), this surged to about 50 000 visitors per Space and Technology. Staff from both clearly show the global penetration of the day, before spiking to 450 000 visitors the House and Senate attended as result and the viral nature of its coverage. on the day of the press conference. The well as committee Chairwoman Rep. two days immediately following the press Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), Ranking On 10 April, Rick Fienberg, the press conference saw 130 000 and 42 000 Member Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK) and officer for the American Astronomical visitors per day to the site before Congressman Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA). Society (AAS) sent out around 20 press declining as expected. In a separate press release, Rep. releases which were just a fraction of Lucas congratulated the EHT on its the total estimated 40-50 press releases NSF success. Later that evening, the Harvard- produced. In anticipation of unprecedented pub- Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics lic interest, NSF launched a special hosted a reception at the Smithsonian’s Thousands of major news outlets report page17 several weeks in advance National Air and Space Museum for reported on the story, which led to of the EHT press conferences. This site invited guests. unprecedented coverage. According to featured stories about NSF black hole news chief Ray Villard at Space Telescope research, and, with EHT approval, teased On 16 May 2019, Córdova and Doeleman Science Institute, the EHT image made the announcement by hosting a trailer for returned to Capitol Hill, this time accom- 3500 online articles with a potential 4.5 the Smithsonian Channel’s documentary panied by MIT Haystack Observatory billion readers (as an upper limit). The Black Hole Hunters. On 10 April, the NSF

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page transformed to host the Washington, were shared with others throughout the that the press release got at least seven D.C. live stream and link to a media site collaboration. Though ESO is not a times more visitors and traffic than the with a wealth of custom visuals including member of the EHT Collaboration, its 2017 high-impact optical counterpart an animation based on EHT modelling contributions through ALMA and APEX detection of gravitational waves (LIGO- data, as well as interviews, B-roll, stills, were significant. A special ESO EHT Virgo) release20. backgrounders, and eventually even a landing page19 was set up and has so far downloadable poster. One of the new had hundreds of thousands of views. Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique videos, an NSF montage featuring the (IRAM) EHT telescopes and data centres, aired A check soon after the publication on IRAM, one of the thirteen EHT stake- during the core press conferences the press clippings service Meltwater holder institutes, reported similar out- around the globe and served as B-roll found 487 stories for “ESO + black comes. IRAM, a research institute in for a number of broadcasts. hole” plus an additional unknown num- France, was mentioned in more than ber for “European Southern Observatory 400 online articles (mainly German and In addition to distinguished guests, + black hole”, which leads us to believe English-speaking) with about 182 million including Director Kelvin Droegemeierof that between 13% and 20% of the articles potential readers. Additionally, French- of the White House Office of Science worldwide mention ESO. speaking media published about 400 and Technology Policy, NSF invited a articles (web, radio, TV, print press) broad pool of EHT team members and Despite undergoing significant hard- mentioning “EHT” and “IRAM”. More than experts to ensure journalists featured the ware and software upgrades in the 100 written articles mentioning “IRAM” broader EHT Collaboration in addition to months before the release, the ESO web were published in Germany alone. the image. servers were somewhat saturated for around 60 minutes from 15:00 to 16:00 Radboud University ESO CEST (13:00 to 14:00 UTC) on 10 April Radboud University in the Netherlands, ESO played a major role in develop- (especially for low-bandwidth connec- another stakeholder in the EHT ing the story and a rich set of visuals tions). Over the first six days after the Collaboration, was mentioned in more that were published together with the release, ESO accumulated 36 million hits than 4000 online articles peaking on press release on the ESO website18: a on its web pages and 1.1 million views 10 April with 1600 online articles, and total of 20 images and 13 videos, which of the press release itself. It is estimated the press release was picked up by the NRC Handelsblad, de Volkskrant, RTL 4 and NOS. The news reached the largest audience via the Algemeen Dagblad in the Netherlands — 6.8 million potential readers. In collaboration with Radboud astronomer Jordy Davelaar, among others, a video was produced in which the black hole was simulated. This video has been viewed almost 100 000 times on several YouTube channels21.

Chile In Chile, the black hole image hit the front pages of the main media and with broad coverage on all the news shows broadcasted on open TV (TVN, MEGA, CHV, Canal 13). It is estimated from Meltwater (Search of “EHT + ALMA”) that at least 700 million theoretical readers Figure 8. The image was the number one story headline on Google News on 10 April (higher than any political received the news mentioning ALMA and news). Credit: Google News the press clipping service LitoraPress calculated the ALMA coverage in Chilean media worth around USD $1.8 million in Advertising Equivalent Value.

Japan In Japan, all the daily national newspapers and many local papers covered the EHT result next morning. The embargo lifted at 22:07 JST in Japan — a somewhat disadvantageous hour and too Figure 9. The Google Trend for “black hole” in April 2019. Credit: Google Trends late for some newspapers to include

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the EHT results in their morning issue on the same day. This video content Impact of Selected Social Media (especially for the editions distributed to the garnered nearly one million views22. Campaigns countryside regions, where the readership is higher than in urban areas). Taiwan NSF Even in this situation, about 300 articles In Taiwan, all the national daily NSF proposed the idea of a “black were published up to 30 April 2019. The newspapers and TV news covered the hole blackout” to the EHT community articles include plain news reports, EHT result on 10 and 11 April. The press to start three days before the event. All interviews with Japanese researchers conference was held at 21:00 CST in NSF social medial pages went dark, focusing on personal aspects of the Taiwan, resulting in many journalists posting only an all-black image and project, and editorial articles. Major coming to interview the researchers over redacted text that gradually unveiled a Japanese TV news programmes and the following few days. There were more message detailing the date and time of tabloid shows covered the EHT result and than 60 articles reporting the EHT news a “major announcement” and ultimately some programmes interviewed Mareki and Taiwanese contribution in April 2019. where to watch it (Figure 13). This drove Honma, the leader of EHT-Japan team. Four Taiwanese TV news programmes excitement and anticipation including an Three TV stations followed Honma’s invited researchers to explain the EHT incorrect theory that NSF had hidden the work in the time from the observation result. black hole image in the post. campaign in April 2017 to the press conference two years later. Within the first week, the NSF Twitter Social Media Impact campaign earned 8.1 million impres- Canada sions, 58 600 retweets, 120 700 likes, In Canada, every national newspaper Social media campaigns were 63 900 clicks on NSF links, and Twitter and television news broadcast covered coordinated with the aim of stimulat- included NSF tweets in the official the EHT Collaboration announcement. ing people’s curiosity leading up to the Twitter Moment news feed. Throughout The country’s most prominent news- event and inform them of the chance to the day on 10 April, NSF posted about paper, The Globe and Mail, ran a long follow any of the press conferences live, the announcement, while the Facebook article and a video produced with EHT as well as to disseminate the image, Live stream from the press conference researcher Avery Broderick of Canada’s the science results and the facilities reached 1.9 million people. NSF’s tweet Perimeter Institute. Canadian Prime which contributed to the science. As with the image23 accumulated more Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted con- for the social media impact, it is hard to gratulations to Broderick and the EHT evaluate, but it was significant, possibly Collaboration. The Perimeter Institute unprecedented, as made evident from released four new videos about the EHT the result reaching number one and on the day of the announcement and number three on Twitter Trends (Figure hosted a live webcast panel discussion 11).

Figure 11. The #EHTBlackHole hashtag of the event was trending as number one while the Japanese Figure 10. A few of the magazine covers of the black hole shadow image. Courtesy of DER SPIEGEL word burakkuhooru (black hole) trended at number 16/20019 32 and New Scientist three on Twitter globally. Credit: Twitter

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Figure 12. Average reach per day on ESO’s Facebook and Twitter for the period 8–16 April was 1.6 million, with a big peak on 10 April. The peak of the social media interest is 3-4 times slimmer than the Google Trend peak. Note the effect of the teasing campaign before 10 April, left. Credit: ESO than 29 700 retweets and 53 400 likes million people per day (1.4 million ESO’s social media had the most impact within 12 hours, numbers which have higher than compared with the previ- in Europe, the message reached every almost doubled since then. Following ous period). Similar to what happened populated continent as well. the announcement, NSF gained 25 000 to the JAO-ALMA Instagram followers, new Facebook followers and 40 000 new the ESO Instagram followers doubled ESO and collaborators also hosted Instagram followers. from 28 038 to 55 545. The main post a Reddit Ask Me Anything Science of the discovery reached 391 230 peo- session25 with scientists from the entire ESO ple and had 50 854 likes and 1059 com- collaboration, which accumulated an ESO started a teasing campaign on 7 ments. The impact on community growth impressive 1600 comments on the April on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, was less significant on other channels (a thread. based on the initial idea from NSF 5% increase in Twitter followers and a 1% and adapted to ESO channels (Figure increase in Facebook friends). On ESO’s EHT Collaboration 14). A message and key visual were YouTube, the videos from the period The Facebook page for the EHT gradually revealed during the period of 10–16 April had 1.05 million views. While Collaboration26 went from less than 5000 8–10 April. The teasing campaign was very successful, with comments showing that people were very eager to see the image.

On Twitter, ESO decided not to host a live stream but did live tweets instead. ESO posted 40 tweets during the day, focusing on explaining the scientific results, the EHT network of telescopes, the role of European facilities, ESO’s contribution to the results through the ALMA and APEX telescopes, the technology used, etc.

ESO’s Facebook and Twitter posts reached 10 779 709 people on 10 April and had an average reach during the period 8–16 April (Figure 12) of 1.6 Figure 13. The NSF “black hole blackout” social media campaign. Credit Twitter/NSF

Figure 14. ESO’s five teaser posts, including the result post, on ESO’s Instagram account24. Credit Instagram/ESO

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• Facebook: The post with the image reached 1.5 million users

Memes

In addition to the impact seen on social media by prepared campaigns, another remarkable aspect of this result was the amount of memes and popular culture references that were shared on social media, demonstrating that the image not only had reached people far wider than seen for other results before, but also that people seemed to be as excited about the results as the scientific community, and engaged in co-creation, sharing heavily on social media. This popularity was enhanced by the simplicity of the image and its easy identification with a black hole, combined with the public’s fascination with these objects.

Leaning into the “meme-ification” of the black hole image, NSF asked the public to share their favourite meme with #BlackHoleLooksLike through a popular blog post titled The best jokes about the first image of a black hole, which was posted on 12 April.

A few of the hundreds of examples of “exploitables” or “memes” are shown here (Figure 15). Figure 15. Social media memes from 10 and 11 April 2019. Courtesy of the individual users friends at the end of March to nearly The European Commission Side Stories 60 000 on the day of and immediately The EC’s social media campaign used following the press conference. The top the full potential of the EC’s Twitter, Apart from memes, the viral dissemi- post on this Facebook account reached Facebook and Instagram accounts. nation of the black hole results led to some four million users, leading to 21 The Commission’s social media team several individual strands of storylines or 000 likes, 23 000 shares and about 1200 shared related posts on all its accounts. “side-stories” that took on a significant comments. The actions were among the most life of their own. Examples include the successful content an EU-institution has following. Mirroring the reach of the ESO social ever published: media activity, the top tweet of the ‘Pôwehi collaboration’s Twitter account (@ehtele- • Twitter: Five tweets with a total of The first astronomy press release was scope), using the #EHTBlackHole hash- 2.7 million impressions and 240 000 translated into the Hawaiian language tag, has generated 1.4 million impres- engagements. The tweet of the image27 and M87* was bestowed the name sions, with over 65 000 retweets and 130 was the most successful ever published ‘Pôwehi (“embellished, fathomless dark 000 likes. The number of impressions by the EC. creation”) by Dr Larry Kimura, an asso- in March averaged about 3000 per day, ciate professor of Hawaiian Language then increased to 43 000 from 1–9 April, • Instagram: More than 21 000 engage- and Hawaiian Studies at the University 7.9 million on 10 April, 2.9 million on 11 ments and with a reach to 139 757 of Hawai’i, Hilo 28. In Hawai’i, the success April, about 250 000 from 12–18 April and people. The EC’s #RealBlackHole of this locally directed press releases was 84 000 from 18–25 April. The number of Instagram post was the most demonstrated when the state governor followers was about 4500 at the time successful content of an EU social media proclaimed 10 April as ‘Pôwehi Day in of the media advisory, about 6500 just Instagram account ever both in terms of Hawai’i. before the announcement and about 61 engagement and in terms of reach. 000 on 11 April.

20 CAPjournal, No. 26, October 2019 CAPjournal, No. 26, October 2019

Stock Photo Firestorm in China Japanese Photo-Op Stand media coverage of significant results, In China, the stock image provider Visual Also in Japan, a tweet of a “photo-op especially concerning scientists with large China Group (VCG) set off a debate over stand” of the EHT image installed at the numbers of followers or enhanced name copyright practices in China and beyond NAOJ Mizusawa VLBI Observatory led to recognition. after claiming exclusive rights to the a viral story in Japan and coverage from black hole photo. Shares for VCG (with several newspapers. As a result, the • A common strategy with regard to an around 500 MEUR in assets) plunged observatory received nearly four times embargo policy and how to deal with 27% on 12 April and had not recovered more visitors during the holiday season media requests must be defined and several months later. Internet regulators in early May compared to the year before. strictly followed by all partners. A detailed in Tianjin temporarily shut down the VCG justification for this strategy should website, calling for the company to end be provided — both for collaboration “illegal, rule-breaking practices”. VCG Other Results members and the media — including issued a public apology and the website preventing accidental leaks and avoid- remained closed for several weeks29. The EHT image was honoured with its ing favouring of individual media outlets. own Google Doodle (Figure 22), was on Katie Bouman Wikipedia’s front page (Figure 23) and • Sharing material under the Creative A viral story about EHT scientist Katie was even featured in two xkcd comic Commons Attribution 4.0 License allows Bouman overtook social media following a strips (Figure 24). for the maximum wider reach with mini- tweet posted by MIT’s Computer Science mum effort (no need to approve usage and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory requests). At the same time, attention (@MIT_CSAIL) at 9:10 EDT on 10 April. Conclusions and Lessons has to be paid to third parties who take This tweet was followed by further tweets Learned the visuals and re-use them without due from prominent STEM Twitter users credit (or by changing a license fee). that included a photo from Bouman’s Although it is hard to draw very solid Facebook page showing her reaction conclusions from this complex campaign • The different cultures of the commu- to a pre-announcement EHT image on with its multitude of outcomes, some nicators and scientists in the campaign her computer or comparison to Apollo takeaways are nonetheless clear. meant that important official factsheets 11 software engineer Margaret Hamilton. about the project’s history as well as Bouman and other EHT researchers • The success of this campaign was technical and scientific background defended her after the emergence of made by a combination of an amazing were prepared, but not approved and sexist tweets caught her in a social result, a captivating and dramatic story published, preventing a more complete media firestorm, necessitating issue build-up, an appealing main visual (the communication effort. management support to Bouman image) and a significant investment in from the Smithsonian Astrophysical excellent, accurate graphic design. • Teasing on social media works well Observatory and HeadFort Consulting. to generate attention, but it has to be This viral story was perhaps fed by a lack • Content is king. Naturally, the quality balanced to not become too much. of appreciation for the size and complex- of the communication products, the teas- ity of the EHT collaboration as well as the ing campaigns and the collective might • For complex storylines, it helps to have knowledge that women’s contributions to of the dozens of “endorsing” world-lead- a team of (younger) scientists ready to science have often been neglected. ing organisations were important. But answer questions in real-time on social had the result and story behind it been media, and are available to give inter- Respite from Brexit weak, the impact would likely have been views and extra provide information in British journalists and artisans found much lower. the following days. An exciting result respite in the positive, benign, and, will generate a lot of questions and most importantly, peaceful international • For a big collaboration with many engagement. collaboration in the midst of deteriorating involved organisations, it is natural Brexit talks between Britain and Brussels, and unavoidable to allow all participat- • When video streaming, a script for leading to humorous articles, tweets, and ing organisations to issue their own the camera people that clearly indicates political comics in the media and online. press releases. Having a common core where the focus should go is impor- allowed us, in this case, to have the best tant. Within the camera field of view, the Japanese Products of both worlds: to fully align our science speakers should be combined with inset Online in Japan, Kellogg’s and a messages and still allow for “localised” frames of the sides and the audience. Japanese candy company30 used the organisational content. science results in promotional tweets • When doing Facebook Live, it is worth- on Twitter, a dominating social media • Not unexpectedly, viral content while to research how to do Facebook platform in Japan31. A company that generates unpredictable side sto- cross-posting and to look into Twitter’s creates virtual Youtube avatars, or ries that take on lives of their own Media Studio to make the content easily VTubers, distributed a design file of an and can help the visibility of the main available to partners. “eye” inspired by the EHT image. storyline. A plan should be implemented for monitoring and responding to social

An Unprecedented Global Communications Campaign for the Event Horizon Telescope First Black Hole Image 21 An Unprecedented Global Communications Campaign for the Event Horizon Telescope First Black Hole Image

2 This included one held at the Danish 20 ESO 2017 LIGO-Virgo press release: https:// • Social media ideas, tools, hashtags National Space Center in Denmark. Denmark, www.eso.org/public/news/eso1733/ and messaging is best discussed well a new member of the EHT, which will be 21 in advance. It is important to have some Videos include the following: https://youtu. involved in future EHT observations through be/8S-DF6WZob8, https://www.youtube.com/ hashtags highlighting some of the individ- the Greenland Telescope. watch?v=3NeIVjfuKQY, https://www.youtube. uals involved in the project (also to highlight 3 Zoom video produced by ESO: https://www. com/watch?v=0LsiYlH-bmI and more. diversity) and could have been done eso.org/public/videos/eso1907c/ 22 Perimeter Institute’s video playlist: https:// better in this case. 4 Teamwork: https://www.teamwork.com/ www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaLvSxP- 5 Japanese comic produced by NAOJ: pI1c2NsXZuwah9Ns7DqdAw2mBm • It is very important to provide timely https://www.nao.ac.jp/en/news/sp/20190410- 23 NSF’s final “black hole blackout” tweet: and effective media training to the sci- eht/images/eht-comic-en-20190410.pdf https://twitter.com/NSF/sta- entists presenting at a press conference. 6 tus/1115964620186030080 Often, scientists prepare slides that EC Youtube live stream of the press conference: https://youtu.be/Dr20f19czeE 24 ESO’s Instagram: https://www.instagram. are more appropriate for the scientific 7 com/esoastronomy/?hl=en community and not a general audience. EUtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ eutube 25 Black hole Ask Me Anything on Reddit: 8 https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/com- • Due to the magnitude of the story, Live stream on Le Monde: https://www.lem- ments/bbknik/askscience_ama_series_we_ there were organisations involved in onde.fr/sciences/live/2019/04/10/en-direct- suivez-la-diffusion-de-la-premiere-image-d- are_scientists_here_to/ parts of the result who were not among un-trou-noir_5448356_1650684.html 26 EHT Facebook page: https://www.facebook. the large group of communicators. Due 9 com/ehtelescope/ to strict confidentiality, the conundrum JAO-ALMA observatory website: www.alma- observatory.org 27 EC tweet of the black hole image: https:// of how to involve them and how much 10 twitter.com/EU_Commission/sta- risk to assume was never resolved in a NAOJ Youtube live stream of the press conference: https://youtu.be/_QBQMT5vrJo tus/1115964395782197248 satisfactory way. 28 11 The release was directed by the East Asian NAOJ niconico live stream of the press con- Observatory which operates JCMT on Only a true team effort can lead to a ference: https://live.nicovideo.jp/gate/ lv319442680 Maunakea in collaboration with staff at ‘Imiloa success as big as this. The value of and Dr. Kimura. 12 NAOJ press release: https://www.nao.ac.jp/ international collaborations in science 29 news/science/2019/20190410-eht.html Although it is technically not against the communication cannot be stressed Creative Commons Attribution licensing to dis- 13 Video of the press conference of the Chief enough for their benefits, especially for tribute an image at a cost, stock photo agen- Cabinet Secretary of Japan: https://www.kan- generating reach in the millions or even cies are not allowed to change the credit (as tei.go.jp/jp/tyoukanpress/201904/11_a.html billions of readers. sometimes is seen) and are required to ensure 14 NSF Youtube live stream of the press con- that the Creative Commons message is dis- ference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l- tributed with the image as well. nJi0Jy692w Acknowledgements 30 Japanese pineapple candy tweet: https:// 15 With some conviction, the authors believe twitter.com/pain_ame/sta- The authors would like to acknowl- that the readership is on the order of billions. A tus/1115977781341380608 sanity-check of this number: the number of edge all the scientists, organisations, 31 eMarketer article “Japan Is One of the people living in absolute poverty dropped from observatories and funding organisa- World’s Strongest Markets for Twitter”: https:// ~1.9 billion in 1990 to 734 million in 2015 www.emarketer.com/content/japan-is-one-of- tions who collectively made this his- (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_pov- the-strongest-markets-in-the-world-for-twitter toric result possible. We would like erty). The literacy rate changed from 73% in 32 to thank Josh Chamot (NSF), Peter 1990 to 87% in the present (~6.7 billion people Der Spiegel cover: https://www.spiegel.de/ Kurczynski (NSF), and Denise Zannino who can read and write out of 7.7 billion, spiegel/print/index-2019-16.html (NSF) for their insights and assistance. https://ourworldindata.org/literacy), and 56% A big thank-you also goes to the many of the world population now has access to the scientists who were involved with the internet (~4.4 billion, https://www.internet- communication work and without whom worldstats.com/stats.htm). In summary, an this effort would not have been so estimate of a few billion may be right, consid- ering the huge impact of the news in large and successful: Luciano Rezzolla, Chi-kwan populated regions such as China, Latin Chan, Hung-Yi Pu and several others. America, as well as Europe and North America, with a very high coverage rate. Notes 16 EHT website: http://eventhorizontelescope. org 1 Ethan Siegel’s article “10 Deep Lessons 17 from Our First Image Of A Black Hole’s Event NSF black holes webpage: www.nsf.gov/ Horizon: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ blackholes startswithabang/2019/04/11/10-deep-lessons- 18 ESO press release: https://www.eso.org/ from-our-first-image-of-a-black-holes-event- public/news/eso1907/ horizon/#be8191e55e64 19 ESO EHT webpage: https://www.eso.org/ public/science/event-horizon/

22 CAPjournal, No. 26, October 2019 CAPjournal, No. 26, October 2019

Biographies Colin Hunter is the Director of Harriet Parsons is a Support Astronomer Communications and Media at Perimeter at the JCMT observatory operated by the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, East Asian Observatory. She obtained her Ontario, Canada. The not-for-profit institute PhD in Astrophysics at the University of Lars Lindberg Christensen is an award-win- is the world’s largest independent centre for Hertfordshire in 2011. Alongside her duties ning astronomer, science communicator and theoretical physics research, training, and as a Support Astronomer and Head of manager. He is responsible for the communi- educational outreach. Operations, she manages the expanding out- cation for some of the world’s most famous reach efforts at the JCMT. telescopes such as ESA’s part of the Hubble Katharina Königstein has worked at Space Telescope and ESO’s Extremely Radboud University as Communication Eduardo Ros is a scientist at the MPI für Large Telescope. He has authored a dozen Specialist and Management Support and Radioastronomie in Bonn, Germany, and popular science books translated into more coordinated European science outreach professor for Astrophysics (on leave) at the than ten languages. efforts in her role as a program manager University of Valencia, Spain. Event Horizon together with the other leading institutes. Telescope Board Executive Secretary and Mislav Baloković is a postdoctoral research She has now taken this experience back to coordinator of its Observing Proposals and fellow at the Center for Astrophysics | the industry and pursues her career in the the Outreach Working Groups; also member Harvard & Smithsonian, studying active IT-Service Management sector. of collaborations such as MOJAVE, TANAMI galactic nuclei. He led and contributed or Fermi/LAT. to many small-scale public outreach pro- Sarah Leach is a science editor based in jects, and currently co-coordinates out- Leiden, the Netherlands. She has worked on Oana Sandu is a communication expert reach efforts of the Event Horizon Telescope astronomy communication, outreach, and for science and technology with more than Collaboration. education for many organisations and insti- 11 years of experience. Among the brands tutions, including the European Southern she works for is the European Southern Mei-Yin Chou is the Education and Public Observatory, Imperial College London, the Observatory, where she handles community Outreach (EPO) Project Scientist in California Academy of Sciences and the coordination (promotion, distribution and Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Chabot Space and Science Center. social media) and communication strategy. Astrophysics (ASIAA), Taiwan. Nicolás Lira is a Chilean journalist with pre- Calum Turner is an astrophysics graduate Suanna Selby Crowley, PhD, RPA, is a vious studies in Physics in the Denis Diderot and science communicator with a growing research scientist with an expertise in com- University in Paris, France. Currently, Nicolas experience of sharing astronomy with the munications, digital media, fundraising, is studying a Master Degree of Innovation at public and, until recently, he worked as the and applied anthropology. She has worked the Catholic University in Santiago, Chile. Public Information Officer at ESO. He is cur- across the globe on projects that involve He has been working in outreach at ALMA rently spending his time studying spacecraft technology, the environment, and the role of since 2013. engineering. women in science, and now leads HeadFort Consulting, LLC, based near Boston, MA. Mariya Lyubenova is a faculty astronomer Megan Watzke is the public affairs officer at ESO and head of the Media Relations for the Chandra X-ray Observatory, a position Peter Edmonds has worked as the Chandra Team at the Department of Communication. she has held since 2000. Her responsibili- Press Scientist since 2003. Before that Mariya worked as a researcher ties include the dissemination of Chandra’s at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy science results to the public through press Valeria Foncea, a journalist and Master in in Heidelberg, Germany and the Kapteyn releases, press conferences, informal edu- Strategic Communication, is the EPO Officer Astronomical Institute of the University of cation and other activities. of the ALMA Radio Telescope. She has an Groningen, the Netherlands. extensive television career doing reports Karin Zacher is a science and astron- on environmental, scientific and techno- Satoki Matsushita received his PhD from omy communicator. At IRAM, one of the logical issues for the Chilean TV. In institu- the Graduate University of Advanced world’s leading institutes for radio astron- tional communications, she has served at the Studies in Japan, then spent postdoc peri- omy, she is responsible for the commu- UNDP and ESO-Chile. ods at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard nication of the most powerful radio tele- & Smithsonian and the Academia Sinica, scopes in the Northern Hemisphere: the Masaaki Hiramatsu is the East Asian ALMA Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics NOEMA Observatory and the IRAM 30-meter Education and Public Outreach Officer and (ASIAA) working on starbursts and active Telescope. an assistant professor at NAOJ. He obtained galactic nuclei using submillimeter interfer- a PhD in radio astronomy, then worked as an ometers, and is now a Research Fellow at ALMA postdoc in Taiwan before starting his ASIAA. current post in 2011, just before the start of ALMA science observations.

An Unprecedented Global Communications Campaign for the Event Horizon Telescope First Black Hole Image 23