In presenting policy research to any audience, there is a tendency for those from a research or academic background to place too much emphasis on the research process itself and the details of the experiment. Audiences interested in public policy problems tend to be of mixed backgrounds, and normally have limited interest in or capacity to absorb the details of your research; what really interests them is the implications of your findings for the current policy challenges and discussion. The message derived from your research project should be an argument about the current policy challenge and potential solutions based on the outcomes and findings of the research.1
Having developed an in-depth profile of your target audiences, you now come to thinking about how you can shape your advocacy message to appeal to your target audiences.2 Returning to the policy advocacy communication model for a moment, in this step you are planning to ensure you have the best chance of achieving the first three stages, that is, to get audiences to understand, engage with, and at least begin to be convinced by your arguments.
Following a long process of research and analysis, you will have generated a large amount of evidence, stories, cases, reflections, and findings. When beginning to think about communicating what you have found in the research, you have to choose what to emphasize over all the other things you found, that is, what is going to be the “takeaway message” of the research. This is the intended message you want your target audiences to receive consistently through all communication tools in longer and shorter formats.
The takeaway message should be consistent through all communication tools.
Unsurprisingly, your advocacy objectives will guide the choice of what to emphasize in this takeaway message. Knowing the target audiences, the incentive structures, and the hopes and fears that inform their current positions, you want to build an argument to get these audiences to begin questioning or building on their current thinking and come on board with your ideas and arguments. You are aiming to convince them to think in a different way, an important stepping stone to their ownership of a new conventional wisdom on the policy issue as, ultimately, they will provide you with the leverage you need to move the process in the desired direction.
The process of choosing what to emphasize in your advocacy message is captured in the idea that you only should plan to present the “tip of the iceberg” from all the data and evidence you generated through your research. Remembering that your message is the beginning of a dialogue on the topic, you will undoubtedly get to present the rest of the “iceberg” since the audiences involved in such discussions are naturally skeptical and will need much more detail and have many questions beyond the content communicated in your initial advocacy messages in order to shift their position.
The message will only be the “tip of the iceberg” from all your research findings.
In practical terms, shaping messages for specific audiences refers to the development of messages that connect and engage your chosen target audiences. Based on your research findings, this involves developing an argument which clearly illustrates “how seen from their perspective, it makes sense to change.”3 The argument will logically seek to compare and contrast current interpretations of the evidence with your own. It is also often said that we must provide a balance of carrots (or incentives: how they can benefit from the proposed change) and sticks (or threats: what will happen without this change) in attempting to move audiences out of their current positions. The Macedonian case illustrates one approach to connect the message to target audiences.
Messages should contain a balance of carrots (incentives) and sticks (threats).
Case 3: Macedonia
Introducing and passing a Patients’ Bill of Rights (2006–2008)
Policy fellow and think tank (Studiorum)
The main messages from Studiorum to the Ministry of Health on the Patients’ Bill of Rights issue are a good illustration of how, seen from the ministry’s perspective, they needed to make this change:
- You already need to do this as part of the EU accession process.
- We’ve already done the homework you would need to do, that is, completed the research of international and regional best practice and conducted an opinion survey of Macedonian citizens.
- We are offering you the expertise on a partnership basis to complete this in a way that is not the normal “cut and paste” approach, but an approach that is sensitive to the Macedonian situation and fulfills EU requirements.
It has a good balance of incentives and threats and offers the ministry both the credibility of the international research and local polling.
When we discuss the process of choosing what to emphasize in training workshops, participants often question the ethics of “manipulating” or “spinning” the message to appeal to target audiences. The response to this question is that obviously if you want to preserve your name as a reputable provider of research, the messages you produce should not go outside of the boundaries of a truthful representation of what was found in the research. Also, if you were to decide to untruthfully represent the findings just to appeal to a particular target audience, you will undoubtedly be found out in the questioning and discussion that will follow in any advocacy process. Some literature is critical of this process of the simplification or reduction of policy messages, as they say it removes the complexity of policy challenges.4 What these commentators seem to forget is that these messages represent only the beginning of a long discussion focusing exactly on that complexity before any influence on policy decisions normally happens.
In shaping messages that connect to the thinking of target audiences, multiple overlapping dimensions need to be considered:
- Make sure your message is policy-relevant
- Make sure your message presents practical and usable solutions
- Communicat simply to make messages accessible
- Make messages memorable and portable.