How can we speak differently in order to affect policy, public opinion and public will about the importance of affordable, quality homes? This introduction to strategic communication will equip you to have transformative conversations about housing needs in your community. You’ll leave with a new set of tools and a fresh way of thinking about your communications.
Presenters
Patrick Bresette, Public Works
Matt Kinshella, Neighborhood Partnerships
2. If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to
collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather
teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
—Antoine de Saint‐Exupery
5. Oregon has a history of ingenuity, innovation,
and independence. The beauty and resources of
our state have inspired and nurtured us for
generations. We have worked hard to come
together, and to build communities and the
public systems – roads, schools, cities, and towns
– that sustain us. If we harness our spirit and our
energy, and invest in people, we can create a
better future for the next generation. We can
ensure that every person, every family, and every
community in Oregon can prosper.
7. Analysis of news reports suggest that when
poverty is framed as a societal problem,
society is deemed responsible. Alternatively,
when news presentations illustrate poverty
with a specific example of a poor person,
responsibility is assigned to the individual.
(Iyengar, 1990).
8. Different Stories > Different Solutions
Portraits
• Individuals
• Events
• Private
• Better information
• Fix the person
Landscapes
• Issues
• Trends
• Public
• Better Policies
• Fix the Condition
- Based on work by Iyengar and Gilliam
10. MEDIA CASE STUDY: Paid sick leave
Public
Health
School
Nurse
Mom/Nonpr
ofit
Restaurant
Owner
Sick leave
is good for
the health
of the
community
Sick leave
allows kids
to go home
when they
are sick –
keeping
everyone in
school
healthy
Sick leave
helps
moms be
healthy and
take care of
kids
Sick leave
keeps
employees
AND
customers
healthy
which is
good for
business
11. LEG. CASE STUDY: Affordable homes
for farmworkers
Tenants Owners Farmers Migrant
health care
official
Importance
of stable,
quality
homes
100%
graduation
rates
because of
supports
Affordable
homes for
workers are
good for
business
Affordable
homes are
a key to
family and
community
health
12. • The choice of messengers is
as
important as the message
itself.
• The message is reinforced or
undermined by the choice of
messenger.
• Knowledge and
trustworthiness, not
likeability or familiarity.
• Some messengers are not
credible we
assume they are biased toward
a
perspective.
• Unlikely allies can prompt
public
reconsideration
recommendation.
• Some messengers convey
specific
frames.
Teacher or case worker?
Hinweis der Redaktion
What are the big values?
I once heard an allegory about mealtime in heaven and hell. It turns out that in both places, meals are served at a huge round table with lots of delicious food in the center. The food is out of reach, but everyone’s got really long forks.
In hell, everyone starves because, while people can reach the food with their forks, the forks are much longer than their arms, so nobody can turn a fork around and eat what’s on the end of it.
In heaven, faced with the same problem, people eat well. How?
By feeding each other.
--
The interesting part – like many of this – isn’t thinking about when people we disagree with use YOYO thinking. It’s when we do it.
Jared Bernstein
- Self sufficiency…
I once heard an allegory about mealtime in heaven and hell. It turns out that in both places, meals are served at a huge round table with lots of delicious food in the center. The food is out of reach, but everyone’s got really long forks.
In hell, everyone starves because, while people can reach the food with their forks, the forks are much longer than their arms, so nobody can turn a fork around and eat what’s on the end of it.
In heaven, faced with the same problem, people eat well. How?
By feeding each other.
--
The interesting part – like many of this – isn’t thinking about when people we disagree with use YOYO thinking. It’s when we do it.
Jared Bernstein
- Self sufficiency…
Talk about this process
Because we have this WYSIATI nature – we shouldconsider it for storytelling for change.
Just based on the metaphor what do you think characteristics of portrait and landscape stories are?
A simple way to distinguish news story frames is to think of the difference between a portrait and a landscape. In a news story framed as a portrait, audiences may learn a great deal about an individual or an event, heavy on the drama and emotion. But, it is hard to see what surrounds individuals or what brought them to that moment in time.
A landscape story pulls back the lens to take a broader view. It may include people and events, but connects them to the larger social and economic forces. News stories framed as landscapes are more likely to evoke solutions that don’t focus exclusively on individuals, but also the policies and institutions that shape the circumstances around them.
Going back to the benevolent community….are we trying to get people to focus on systemic change?
HUMAN STORIES ARE SO POWERFUL THEY CAN BACKFIRE
Human stories can naturally seem like the WHOLE story. It is so easy and natural to focus on a face, and
on the drama of an individual life, that attention to this dimension of an issue can totally block out the broader,
systemic factors – factors that we know are real, critical, and typically unknown to our audience. A face on the
story can make it even harder to focus on these broader factors, resulting in no appreciation for why structural,
policy interventions are needed.
We have seen over and over in our research that participants tend to focus exclusively on individual stories once
they hear them, and to forget or disregard the broader factors that a communication is trying to convey.
Once people focus on the drama of the individual story, they can easily arrive at conclusions that
are the opposite of what we’re trying to convey. When we tell a “Close Up” story, we invite audiences to
focus on a very narrow picture of individual choices, abilities, good or bad luck, and so forth. That’s what
individual stories are made of. The result can be condemnation of the very individuals we are trying to help. The
mom who is struggling to provide for her family “shouldn’t have had so many kids,” “shouldn’t have moved to that
neighborhood,” “should have gotten more schooling so she’d have more options” etc. Time and again we have
seen research participants react in these ways to an individual who struck us as so obviously sympathetic. The
“face on the story” is a double-edged sword. It gets attention and is memorable, but easily leads to the wrong
takeaway
How do we paint a landscape?
Stories of Place
We have found in many cases that it is helpful to talk about
problems and solutions in terms of place. For instance, public
investment in the arts makes sense because it creates more
vibrant and prosperous neighborhoods – which is vivid and
compelling, but without some of the pitfalls of a focus on
individual plights.
Solutions Stories
Stories that focus on solutions – successful programs, effective interventions, etc. – can be very powerful because
they convey optimism and belief in the power of collective action. They suggest to people that social problems are
perhaps not so intractable after all. For instance, a story about successful dropout prevention efforts at a struggling
high school, featuring a volunteer who explains why this solution matters, would be a compelling story likely to
encourage others to support the program.
Big Picture, with Faces
Once the big picture points have been established, then it can be helpful to offer individual stories in order to flesh
out the point. For example, in research we have done on low wage jobs, we have found that it is helpful to first
convey a big-picture idea like “X industry has lobbied to keep wages down for decades” or “wages are so low that
full time workers qualify for food stamps”, etc. Once the big picture is established, then individuals (more than
one) can effectively support the idea with their own experiences – as long as their story stays on frame.
Plus campaign and city
Paid sick leave
Messengers
• The choice of messengers is as
important as the message itself.
• The message is reinforced or
undermined by the choice of
messenger.
• Knowledge and trustworthiness, not
likeability or familiarity.
• Some messengers are not credible we
assume they are biased toward a
perspective.
• Unlikely allies can prompt public
reconsideration recommendation.
• Some messengers convey specific
frames.
‐ FrameWorks Institute