The Polarizing Pandemic

One of the most disturbing aspects of the COVID crisis is the extent to which beliefs and actions are polarized by political party identification. Several surveys find partisan divides in concern and action; one rigorous analysis by the National Bureau of Economic Research controlled for a range of potential factors to conclude that “partisan gaps in beliefs and behavior are real.”

Read the article on Medium.com

Empowering Perspectives

An interesting tweet caught our attention:

“If we view ourselves as besieged victims who need to go into hiding, then we will cultivate fear and hoarding. If we view ourselves as a community working hard to protect the most vulnerable among us, then we will cultivate courage and helping. Mindset matters.”

This perspective strikes us as accurate and helpful, and right in line with the most basic premises of effective public interest communication: Complex situations can always be understood in more than one way, with very different consequences. Making progress depends on identifying the perspectives with the most positive consequences.

When it comes to COVID, but also many other topics – from climate change to the economy to sustainable agriculture, etc. – it is easy for us to see problems as daunting or overwhelming, as though we are at the mercy of events way beyond our power to make a difference. Fear causes us to turn inward; cynicism causes us to shut down.

But other perspectives help us recognize that we are active participants, making the world better through our choices and actions. We feel strong and uplifted when we recognize how our actions matter.

For most of us, our most effective activity to slow COVID is to stay home, and that doesn’t feel much like “taking action.” In fact, it feels like passivity, unless we are reminded that this is a decisive, winning strategy because our actions have consequences for everyone around us, for better or worse. “We are all in this together” – not just in an abstract or moral sense, but in practical, meaningful ways. In COVID, we support each other by staying apart.

Communicators encourage empowering perspectives on a range of issues by:

  • Focusing on practical, understandable solutions more than problems and threats,
  • Connecting the dots so people understand a complex topic and how the solution solves the problem, and
  • Providing clear choices they should be supporting by voting, by speaking up, and by making their priorities known.

Will COVID-19 Kill Trickle-Down Economics?

Trickle down…Bootstraps…these flawed mental models of the economy – most often used by those speaking from a conservative point of view – might, at long last, show signs of weakness, providing an opening for progressive models of the economy. Communicators can use this quick review of economic models to win arguments for progressive economic policies now, as well as lay a foundation for public understanding that will last beyond the current crisis.

Mental models are simple representations of a much more complex system. They serve as shortcuts for understanding, such as “the heart is a pump,” and guide people’s attitudes and behavior.

Conservative

Two of the dominant economic mental models serve a conservative point of view either by building support for economic policies that advantage corporate, wealthy interests, or by obscuring the role of government in shaping economic conditions and opportunities. Progressive communicators should avoid using these models:

Trickle down: While people laugh at the phrase “trickle down,” and argue over who is a job creator, this mental model of money flowing from those with money to those without, from employers to employees, from investors to those who want investment, and so on, continues to influence discourse and build support for harmful economic policies that focus on making sure the wealthy have more wealth.

I am not for raising taxes in a recession, especially when it comes to job creators that we need so desperately to start creating jobs again. Eric Cantor

Guys like me are job creators, and we don’t like having a bulls-eye painted on our back. Steve Wynn

Bootstrap: A sense of self-reliance and belief that with enough hard work anyone can succeed, is firmly ingrained in American culture. It is such a powerful way of understanding the economy that most Americans default to seeing the economy as something that individuals have to navigate as best they can, rather than a system we built and can change. This model is pervasive, used by both progressives and conservatives.

What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate. Donald Trump

Progressive

Progressives advance several economic mental models; some are very effective in promoting progressive policies while others should be used with caution:

Flow of Money: To combat “trickle down” supply side thinking, advocates have focused on metaphors that promote Keynesian economic theory, such as “bubble up” or “middle out.” The basic idea is that a healthy economy requires that money flow freely, circulating in the places average people live and work.

Congressional Democrats were able to turn upside down the bill that was presented at the beginning of the weekend…It was a trickle-down, corporate bill. It is now a bubble-up, workers bill and we’re very proud of that. Nancy Pelosi

A People-Centered System: When people have money, they create and grow the economy through their work, earning and spending so businesses have customers and can then hire more people to meet demand. When more people are included in the economy, there is more prosperity. This model is very compatible with the Flow of Money model and when combined, they forefront the important role of average workers and communities in creating broad-based prosperity.

Gradual increases in the minimum wage help ensure Vermonters have the economic resources to support themselves, which puts more money into Vermont’s small businesses and helps our communities thrive. Mitzi Johnson, VT House Speaker

We need to create economy-boosting jobs where the average worker feels valued and earns enough money to comfortably spend in their community and to enhance the well-being of their families. When workers can do that, everyone benefits. Henry Ford was right – his assembly line workers needed high enough wages to allow them to buy the cars they built. National Fund for Workforce Solutions

Importantly, both of the prior two mental models ground the economy in average people and communities. They define “the economy” as being about the wellbeing of people and communities, and affirm the contributions of all people, most especially working class people, to broad based prosperity. If money isn’t flowing to all communities, the system isn’t working. If communities of color are not thriving, the problem is the economic policies that are not allowing money to flow there (not flawed or broken individuals). In this way, making sure that every family and community thrives is both the definition of, and a requirement for, a good economy.

The next mental model, common in progressive discourse, is about class and power struggle. It should be used with caution, based on the audience and situation.

Zero-Sum Power Struggle: Progressive communicators often talk about economic disparities and economic fairness as a power struggle. In this view, the economy is rigged by the rich and powerful, so regular folks are in a contest of raw power with elites to win a bigger slice of the economic pie. While widely believed and quite compelling for some audiences, it is also often disempowering, especially for low income people of color who feel overpowered in this struggle. People can both agree with the idea and be convinced that change isn’t possible.

G.E. doesn’t pay any taxes, and we are asking college kids to take on even more debt to get an education and asking seniors to get by on less. These aren’t just economic questions. These are moral questions. Elizabeth Warren

The more we allow Republicans to concentrate the lion’s share of wealth in the hands of a few, the more power these wealthy few will have. And they will use this power to continue rewriting the rules of both our economy and our political system in their favor. Tom Steyer

Finally, there is a new model emerging in the wake of COVID-19, which we’ll call the Lack of Resilience model. It is related to the Flow of Money and People-Centered System models in the sense that it is about how money flows from average people and through communities to create prosperity, but it focuses on the reverse – what happens when money stops flowing? The immediate and drastic shutdown of the economy makes it obvious how vulnerable we are. It is not just that individual people are vulnerable because they are living paycheck to paycheck. It is also the case that because millions are at risk of not being able to afford the basics, spending stops and everything crashes. We are all at risk due to the lack of resilience created by the pay and wealth gaps in the US. We suspect that this emerging model is one that could influence public support for economic policies for some time to come.

Catastrophic Skepticism: Addressing a Public Trained Not to Trust Media or Experts

To some of us, it is baffling how long it is taking for some Americans to do their part to effectively fight the spread of COVID-19.

How hard is it to understand that more time spent around other people means more chances for the virus to spread? The catchy and (sorry) viral “Stay the F— at home” song captures the attitude of many, who can’t believe how casually others are behaving. Why don’t people get it, and do the right thing?

A compelling piece on Vox.com earlier this year holds part of the answer. The author, Sean Illing, discusses a cynical political strategy designed to make people skeptical about everything they see or hear in the news.

Illing cites a reported 2018 statement from Steve Bannon, former Trump strategist and Breitbart News chief: “The Democrats don’t matter. The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.” As Illing puts it, the Bannon strategy (pioneered earlier by Vladimir Putin) aims at “creating widespread cynicism about the truth and the institutions charged with unearthing it” in order to “ensure that the public can never mobilize around a coherent narrative.”

The political effects of a public that never trusts experts or the media are frightening enough – but the COVID-19 crisis is showing how catastrophic and fatal the consequences of a strategy of media disinformation can be. If the pandemic is dismissed as a “hoax” or a story exaggerated to hurt a politician’s election chances, of course we can’t unite around a strategy to beat it.

As of mid-March, just 15% say they trust the information they hear about coronavirus from the news media “a great deal” and only 16% say the same of President Trump. (NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist Poll, March 13-14, 2020, n=835 adults nationwide) Flooding the news with chaos undermines trust in all voices.

Attitudes toward science are an important part of the story, and should not be taken for granted. While 43% trust public health experts, “a great deal,” (NPR), as we have seen, trust in science can also be undermined.

Topos research (in 2017 for the Union of Concerned Scientists) found that it is extremely easy to trigger skepticism about any given scientific topic, because of widespread perceptions that “scientific” pronouncements are actually driven by political, economic or personal agendas.

So how can supporters of science and of informed democratic processes – in whatever issue area – hope to reach audiences deliberately driven (by operators like Bannon) to confusion and skepticism?

Topos research and experience suggests lessons that help communicators bypass cynicism, transcend politics, and get to constructive discussions:

  • Solutions: Americans are often overwhelmed hearing about problems, and intrigued when they, instead, hear about solutions – practical, concrete, effective ways of making things better. Whether the topic is reducing our reliance on oil, making sure neighborhoods have the pre-K slots they need, or reducing race-based economic disparities, they are interested in stories of efforts that work.
  • Collective empowerment: Related to the previous point, Americans are engaged by stories that remind them of the power of people, working together, to make good things happen. When they hear about a community that came together to eliminate a toxic waste site or demand government investment in a new learning center, their cynicism falls away, and they become engaged in new ways.
  • Commonsense explanations: Communicators need to connect the dots about an unfamiliar or complex topic. A simple, commonsense explanation bypasses people’s reflexive skepticism and suspicion of political agendas. Straightforward explanations about simple updates to solidify the Social Security system for instance – such as deducting from higher earnings just as we do from lower earnings – help people feel more confident and less skeptical.
  • Science: When it comes to promoting the importance of science specifically, one of the most compelling ideas to convey is that people in power will try to sideline science for their own political or financial reasons, so we the public need to be watchdogs to make sure this doesn’t happen. That is, we need to keep an eye out and make sure science and scientists aren’t pushed aside when important decisions are being made.

We’ve all seen the last point play out as journalists questioned whenever Dr. Anthony Fauci was not center stage or allowed to talk at White House briefings. Perhaps that is part of the reason that out-and-out rejections of COVID-19 as a legitimate public health crisis are on the wane, and scientific experts are center stage (for now). Hopefully, this is an indication that reality, when the experts are allowed to share it, can trump propaganda and cut through people’s profound skepticism.

Even more hopefully, a silver lining of the current crisis may potentially be that it provides a powerful example of the need for people to sometimes trust the expert consensus and major media sources, so that a meaningful public discourse about the path forward can be re-established.

Health Policy Lesson: Manage the Inevitable

Eat healthy. Exercise. Wash your hands.

We have learned a lot of lessons about health and healthcare, and are learning new lessons now from the current crisis. But many of these lessons still feed into the deeply entrenched American assumption that health outcomes are all about the decisions we make as individuals. The current moment is a time when people are confronting how the decisions we make collectively as a society have a profound impact on the health of our population.

One lesson that we NEED our elected leaders and the broader public to learn from this crisis is that:

All of us inevitably encounter health challenges – regardless of how we live our lives – so communities, states, and the country ought to have systems and policies that help make those challenges as manageable as possible.

This seems obvious now as we collectively struggle to defeat COVID-19, and all Americans become painfully aware of the failures of leadership, planning and response that are exacerbating both the health and the economic crisis. However, this simple, commonsense idea has certainly not guided public thinking about health policy up to this point, and it has not typically guided policymakers’ actions either.

Topos research (prior to COVID-19 but even more relevant now) demonstrates that pointing out this simple lesson – that all of us inevitably encounter health challenges, and public policies should help make those challenges manageable – builds broad public understanding and support for policy action on topics from opioids to Medicare to paid leave.

All of us are hit by health challenges at various times. So it makes all the sense in the world for us to make these inevitable situations more manageable for everyone. Instead, we allow health to be yet another aspect of our lives where race and class create disparities: if our jobs don’t provide health coverage or flexibility, if there is limited access to clinics or medicines in our neighborhoods, if we can’t work from home and can’t afford to go without a day’s pay, etc.

Too often, health is treated as an area where you’re on your own. The current crisis is a lesson to all of us – and especially to public administrators, elected officials, and advocates – that we’re all in it together. We must think, plan, invest and build ahead of time, so that we all fare better when the unexpected inevitably happens, either in the form of a global crisis or the kinds of health situations people face daily.

Communicators will find that framing health policy as being about making inevitable health challenges manageable will make the conversation clearer and more compelling for all of us.

Voting Rights: Full Participation

Voting rights advocates are moving quickly to advance a range of reforms that will protect and improve voting rights in light of COVID-19. As the specific policy agenda is taking shape, Topos research provides guidance in how to think about the narrative challenge. While the pandemic should be reason enough to enact pro-voter policies, forces that want to limit and suppress voting are already finding ways to make their public case in this moment:

  • Leave it to the states: Mitch McConnell’s stance appears to be to “leave it to the states,” where the cost and complexity will be significant challenges, and where limits might go unchallenged or unseen.
  • Stay inside: This is already the reason multiple states have delayed primary elections.
  • Fraud: Opponents typically use concerns about fraud to question many pro-voter policies. The Kentucky legislature is actually using this moment to move on Voter-ID in the name of security.
  • No time: Valid or not, the speed with which reforms need to be enacted prior to November is a consistent refrain.
  • Partisan: We can expect opponents to accuse pro-voter advocates of taking advantage of this moment to push an agenda designed to help Democrats.
  • And so on…

We cannot take for granted that the broader public will see our agenda as necessary in this moment. We need a broad and compelling foundation for our public narrative because the old partisan messages and defensive strategies are insufficient. The public can help us put pressure on elected officials at the local, state and federal level to do the right thing.

Since the 2016 elections, Topos has conducted multiple research efforts—qualitative, quantitative, and grassroots-led, with a broad swath of the electorate as well as deep investigations with Black, Latinx and AAPI voters—designed to understand the opportunities and barriers in public understanding when it comes to voting reforms. While COVID-19 undoubtedly influences voter support right now, the cognitive dynamics we have seen since 2016 are likely to play out in similar ways. The Topos approach focuses on the Cultural Common Sense, the deeply held understandings that are pervasive, unquestioned, and have the power to shape people’s views and behavior. Cultural Common Sense is the level at which policy debates are won and lost. While we suspect that the Cultural Common Sense on voting rights will evolve in coming weeks and months, many of the ideas we are up against are persistent.

We need a paradigm shift, not a slogan; this moment allows for such a shift.

Our conceptual guide star should be an electoral system designed for Maximum Voter Participation.

We rarely hear the idea that our election systems ought to be laser-focused on making sure we have the most active, most engaged and most participatory electorate as possible. Setting our sights on that goal, holding voting and elections policies accountable to that goal, and measuring reforms by whether they help or hinder that goal, allows us to move the debate onto our terrain for the long term. Instead of measuring a reform by whether or not it makes voting more “secure” or whether it is an acceptable inconvenience to prevent “fraud,” this conceptual guide star sets the expectation that reform should be about expanding voting.

This is NOT currently the default cultural model for voting rights, even though it is certainly in advocates’ hearts and minds.

Examples for how advocates are advancing this idea are at the end of this memo. First, we discuss the cognitive dynamics that prevent people from hearing many of our existing messages and that we suspect will threaten our progress even in light of COVID-19.

We are up against a number of cognitive models that have potential to undermine pro-voter reforms.

1. Voting is currently seen through an Individual lens; we need to advance a Systems lens

Voting is viewed as an individual act, right, and responsibility. It is up to the individual to exercise that right or not. The details of the system in which voting takes place are not visible to most people, and so the role of policies is also not apparent.

Looking at voting through the Individual lens, the problem of democratic participation seems to have little to do with the mechanics of voting and registration and everything to do with people’s knowledge, engagement, and motivation.

In a COVID-19 environment, the system could be thrust into the forefront—how can people vote safely? At the same time, we have to anticipate that those who want to limit voting will make the case that all of us should be willing to sacrifice and to accept some inconveniences in this extraordinary moment. Complaining is selfish. Putting up with adversity is admirable.

Of course, advocates have been trying to bring attention to the system/the rules of the game by talking about voter suppression. When voting rights opponents try to advance bad policies or prevent our efforts to adapt to COVID-19, communicators will be tempted to talk about voter suppression. Problematically, people hear this in individual rather than systemic terms so the top-of-mind response tends to be that individual voters should step up. This is true even among many voters of color who either insist that registering and voting is accessible and easy, OR who expect things to be harder for people of color in this realm (as it is in many others) and are somewhat resigned to the situation. While there are times when it is absolutely necessary to call out voter suppression, communicators need to understand that it is not the most powerful default frame for our issue and that is likely to be the case even in a COVID-19 environment when people are going to be expected to deal with “inconveniences.”

2. We need to connect the dots between policies and participation.

Connecting the dots between policies/rules of the game and full participation helps people see why the policies matter. The idea that different systems impact voter turnout from state to state is one of the few approaches that breaks through the assumption that the real problem is engagement, and that a properly activated person will just step past most of the so-called “barriers” to voting.

For example, when people learn that one state has rules that encourage all citizens to participate and therefore has double-digit higher participation than a state with obstacles, they immediately understand that rules matter. This allows communicators to push back on the idea that reforms should just be left to the states, for example.

3. We have to co-opt integrity.

Those who want to limit voting define election integrity as purity of the vote. If even one illegal vote is cast that is putting poison into our electoral outcome. This will continue to be an attack on many pro-voter reforms, and it is highly unlikely that we can win on this terrain since it is hard to argue against putting protections in place.

Instead, we can redefine integrity of the system as being based on the number of people who engage in the system (maximize participation). The vote is more accurate, more representative, when more Americans vote. We have a better democracy/government when more citizens participate. It will be very hard for the opposition to argue against solutions that allow more citizens to engage. (Of course this has to be tied to the systems frame, otherwise it’s just about motivation.)

4. We should avoid partisanship.

There are a variety of ways that partisanship undermines the case for expanding voting rights:

  • People confuse “the actions of the parties” and “the actions of the party in power.” Since most people don’t understand how the party in power can shape election rules, they assume we are talking about the things political parties do, not the rules that get set.
  • People automatically go to their partisan camp. We lose half the electorate when an issue is partisan.
  • “Just Politics” cynicism kicks in. People revert to thinking about how both sides play games, both are equally at fault, and they are reminded of how much they hate politics.
  • They feel even more disempowered. If we do get voters to realize how much control the party in power has, they agree that impartiality is needed, but they think it will never happen and then they can easily feel hopeless.

Putting it all Together

Communicators will find that the Guide Star of Maximum Voter Participation is an extremely flexible idea that can be conveyed in a variety of ways. For all audiences, make sure to:

  • Clarify why widespread participation matters to “me”
  • Explain, connect the dots between policies and participation
  • Reinforce the goal

When people are exposed to this way of thinking, they find it to be powerful, values-driven, and simple common sense. It is a lens through which all voting reforms should be seen.

In our research, prior to COVID-19, the following description created a paradigm shift in voter understanding and support for pro-voter reforms:

Democracy works best when citizens participate and vote. And yet election rules in each state make a big difference in how many voters participate. In states with rules that encourage participation, voter turnout is over 70%, while in states with complicated rules that end up turning citizens away, only about 50% vote. By putting rules in place that encourage voting, rather than discourage it, our democracy will be more representative of what the people actually want. And that’s good for America.

While we have not had an opportunity to test it in the COVID-19 world, we suspect the following approach will be similarly helpful in winning broad public support for pro-voting reforms:

With states quickly enacting voting reforms to respond to COVID-19, we need to ensure that the goal for reform is to encourage full participation. The way states adapt their election rules due to COVID-19, will make a big difference in participation. Even prior to the pandemic, different rules led to voting participation rates as low as 50% in some states and over 70% in other states, largely due to a state’s rules. That’s wrong. The health of our democracy, and the accuracy of our elections are stronger when more people participate.

In communities of color, it also helps to tap a sense of collective responsibility. Many people of color already understand that voting is not simply an individual act, but has effects on other people and communities.

African-Americans often reference ancestors and their sacrifices (slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, etc.) and say it puts the onus on today’s African-Americans to make use of that right, and to make sure that it is not interfered with.

Latinx and Asian American/Pacific Islander participants sometimes share that they vote because policies affect their family members, including family members who cannot themselves cast a vote because they are not citizens.

When people have a sense of themselves as members of a community that is excluded from political power and influence, or underrepresented, they often feel that voting is less an individual duty and more of a collective responsibility.

Examples from the Field

In 2018, Washington State enacted a broad suite of policy reforms: a state Voting Rights Act, preregistration for 16 and 17-year olds, automatic voter registration, and same-day voter registration.

Spencer Olson, who was then the communications director for the WA Voting Justice Coalition, shifted the message focus from partisan gamesmanship (a story the public hates) to a competition to be the first state with 100 percent participation. Olsen modeled this approach in an interview with Mother Jones magazine: “’We want to have the highest participation rate of anywhere in the country,’ says Spencer Olson, communications director for the WA Voting Justice Coalition, a network of groups that lobbied for the bills.”

The national press corps latched on to this concept of rivalry and trailblazing for full participation.

“Imagine that—a series of laws based in the fundamental philosophy that the way to improve our elections is to make it easier for as many people as possible to vote. A revolutionary moment.”

“Behold, a Good Week for Voting Rights,” by Charles P. Pierce, Esquire

 

“With each expansion of voting rights, the nation inched closer to being a truly representative democracy.”

“Vote. That’s Just What They Don’t Want You to Do,” NYTimes

Since the global pandemic hit, an editorial by Tram Nguyen touched on inclusive themes while making the case for full participation:

This year, the Virginia legislature took giant strides toward fuller participation in governance by eliminating obstacles to voting. More than a dozen bills were passed by the General Assembly that will move Virginia into the forefront of voting rights in the United States. The cumulative effect of these and other laws will make it easier for every eligible Virginian to vote. There is much more to democracy than voting, but it is the key to creating a Virginia for all of us…

There’s power in politics that is inclusive, that’s focused only on building a brighter future for our communities. People know what they need. We must take the time to listen. The more young people, working-class, multilingual and formerly incarcerated individuals have access to the ballot, the greater our chances of enacting good policies. Our democracy performs best when there’s equal access to the ballot box. Come November, it will be Virginians’ turn to exercise it.

“Virginia’s Legislature is Breaking Down Barriers to Voting,” by Tram Nguyen, co-executive director of New Virginia Majority, Washington Post.

 

Storytelling in the COVID-19 Moment

Right now there’s lots of great advice about messaging in light of COVID-19 and about how to transform engagement strategies with social distancing in mind. In addition to these critical needs, there is an additional, overlooked need that we, progressive leaders, need to take on. NOW.

We need stories that teach truth, create civic engagement, and provide hope.

The Cultural Common Sense is quickly shifting. What lessons will people learn from this moment? Will fear, xenophobia, othering, and scarcity mindsets take over? Will people lose all faith that government could be an effective problem-solver? Will they look for comfort in an authoritarian father figure?

Or, will people emerge from this moment understanding that our public structures and systems matter, that we are interdependent, that government of, by and for the people means that we-the-people have the power to shape our nation?

The stories people learn in this moment will shape the Cultural Common Sense, with implications for all of our policies and policy battles going forward. The media is holding the Trump Administration accountable for failures, and we should continue to do that too. However, we also need to communicate wins – to demonstrate that collective action matters.

It’s on us to tell Success Stories, not “feel good” stories.

In people’s desire to find light in this time of darkness, individuals are sharing “feel good” stories – Italian balcony concerts, neighbors helping neighbors, the kindness of strangers, and so on. These are very important for emotional and mental health; it’s great that individuals are providing optimism. However, “feel good” stories will not teach about collective solutions, create civic engagement, or provide hope that we-the-people can build the country we want and need.

Progressive communicators need to share stories of successful collective action – what we have accomplished and could accomplish. Like the Little Engine that Could, we-the-people can accomplish great things for the common good in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

Our research shows that people rarely hear of wins. In moments like this, with even more threats to already precarious lives, people feel powerless, especially the most vulnerable. Advocates have successes. We need to share them widely and often, and we should not undercut them with the notion that “it isn’t enough.” The specific win matters less than the idea that we-the-people got something significant accomplished, which inspires people to keep going for more, for that next bigger win.

Some of these stories are national in scope. For example, long before COVID-19, our research showed that people are inspired by the part our nation played in containing the Ebola epidemic. (We suspect people still don’t know that story because progressives don’t expend ongoing energy in communicating successes.)

Many of these stories are local in scope. For example, when our research respondents heard how residents of Chicago’s Southeast side banded together to take on a wealthy, multinational corporation and were successful in banning the storage of toxic material (petcoke) to make the community safer, they were inspired and excited to join a similar effort.

What Success Stories can we tell in this moment?

The eruption of activity by progressive organizations is inspiring. You are stepping up in heroic ways at the local, state and federal level. For example, advocates have won expanded paid sick leave, direct cash transfers, and were victorious over the failed logic of providing a trickle-down payroll tax cut. Work is well underway to protect and expand voting rights with efforts to advance vote by mail, registration requirements and so on. Activists in several states are winning the release of low-risk inmates due to health concerns. There are undoubtedly additional inspiring achievements playing out at the local level.

We need to make sure the average American hears about your efforts, your successes, your power. This isn’t about your ego. It’s about a teachable moment when Americans can see that people working together accomplish great and important things.

Please share your stories with us! We are starting a story bank for this moment, and need your stories. If you want some advice in crafting an effective story, let us know.

Stay safe, healthy, balanced and powerful!

Protecting Public Water: A Public Will Initiative Case Study

“Privatization of our water systems is a threat to democracy and the common good. Topos Partnership understands that and created tools for advocates to fight off attempts by private interests to take control of our water and to advance the larger ideals and values of the public good.”

~ Donald Cohen, Executive Director, In The Public Interest

Introduction

Now more than ever we need robust advocacy for a public sector that works for all. Real change within our communities that need it the most requires effective public policy solutions. In order to realize these policy solutions, we need to neutralize the attacks on our public institutions by making the case for government that is by and for the people.

There is no issue area where the case for the public sector is starker than it is for water—essential to life and to civil society. And yet, lack of investments to modernize our water systems, the drive for cost savings, and lack of transparent, democratic decision-making around rate-setting processes are leading to communities with unaffordable and/or poisoned water, with the most severe impacts among communities of color. These failures subsequently create openings for private-sector entities looking to capitalize on vulnerable water systems and the communities where they are located.

The Topos Partnership worked with advocates in the Public Water Collaborative (PWC) to embed insights from the Public Will Initiative (PWI) into their civic engagement approaches. The primary goal of the collaboration is to protect public water infrastructure against privatization. More broadly, the effort fits into the Public Will mission: encouraging Americans to take an active, constructive, hopeful and determined stance towards government—rather than a dismissive, disengaged and fatalistic one that suggests we should sell off public goods, like our water systems, to the highest bidder.

(The Public Water Collaborative consists of the following organizations: In The Public Interest (ITPI), Food & Water Watch, Action Center on Race and The Economy, and Corporate Accountability.)

The PWI narrative helps achieve policy wins by making the case that “we the people” can and must actively engage with government and fight for public sector solutions to improve our lives and communities.

Importantly, the Public Will Initiative doesn’t focus on immutable “messages,” but on a broader narrative approach, adaptable to changing circumstances, as this case study examining how we worked with water protection advocates illustrates.

Developing an approach

Advocates are often in the position of working to shut down emerging privatization threats before they gain momentum, making a rapid response approach critical.

Given this context, Topos worked with the PWC to co-create an approach that allows for quick and specific responses, but also for broad themes to internalize over time.

The result is communication templates that water protection advocates can adapt to specific situations—see the Protecting Public Water Rapid Response Toolkit. This toolkit includes talking points, scenarios, and social media examples highlighting the PWI narrative.

A shift in perspective

“The Topos Partnership has developed tools to help communities across the country strategically communicate the importance of public control of water systems. Topos offers a unique analysis that emphasizes how people can come together to become active participants in their government by shifting public perspective so that people can conceive of how their role in government can go beyond just voting.”

~ Mary Grant, Public Water For All Campaign Director, Food & Water Watch

The core strategic shift that Topos and PWC emphasize is away from a discussion of who can supply water more effectively and efficiently (business or government?), and towards who should control a resource like water (the public or profit-seeking businesses?).

“Who can supply?” easily leads to default perspectives about businesses being more “efficient” and more “expert” than government when it comes to providing services, making privatization seem reasonable.

“Who should control?” instead gets people thinking about their role—public ownership rather than private monopolies. The foundation of our communications approach emphasizes the risks in “handing over control” of something as vital as water to private interests that may or may not run things in ways that benefit the public:

Privatization means handing over control of OUR water to a private entity, with little to no accountability to we-the-people. Losing this control means we limit OUR tools to PROTECT OUR most essential resources.

Real-world example: Pittsburgh

Working with the PWC, Pittsburgh United developed strategies to fight off a water privatization proposal from the private company, People’s Gas. On June 13, 2018, Pittsburgh United held a press conference to call attention to this privatization attempt, using PWI talking points:

  • For the past year and a half, the Our Water Campaign has fought for safe, affordable, publicly controlled water. We’re winning: PWSA has begun replacing lead lines, developed a Customer Assistance Program, fixed their billing system, taken steps to reduce lead in the water, and instituted a winter moratorium on water shut-offs. We now have safer water, and more equitable rates for everyone, from a public water authority that is more accountable to the public than ever. And we’re not done yet; PWSA continues to work with us on behalf of the people of Pittsburgh to improve their services across the board.
  • Handing over control of our water to a private company is what got us here in the first place. Paris-based private water company Veolia took over management of PWSA in 2011, and we’ve been cleaning up their mess ever since.
  • Water is a public good and human right; not a commodity. Our need for safe and healthy drinking water is too important to be left in the hands of a private equity firm on the other side of the country. Pittsburgh’s water system is for us, the people of Pittsburgh, so we have clean and affordable water; it is not for generating billions of dollars for Wall Street billionaires.

These brief statements remind people what is at stake, i.e. the public institutions that are the foundations of our wellbeing. They also work to reinvigorate a sense that government is, or can be, about our collective will (“by the people”).

Successes:

Advocates have been successfully deploying the PWI strategy and water anti-privatization toolkit to educate the public on these topics. Specific successes include:

  • In November 2018, Baltimore’s residents voted to become the first major city to keep their water system public for good.
  • In April 2019, Maryland state leaders passed a bill protecting Baltimore City residents from losing their homes over unaffordable or incorrect water bills.
  • Advocates in Providence used the PWI messaging which led to the Rhode Island mayor pulling the plug on a plan that would privatize the city’s water, bowing to pressure from residents concerned that rates would rise.
  • In March 2018, advocates in Pittsburgh utilized PWI messaging in getting the Mayor to sign a pledge opposing privatization attempts of Pittsburgh’s water systems. Subsequently in July 2019, the board of directors of the city’s water systems—Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority—unanimously approved a pledge to bar privatization and permanently guarantee public ownership of the water facility in Pittsburgh.

Looking to the future:

A core group of water protection advocates are now equipped with the strategies and tools to implement the PWI narrative into their every day communications. In doing so, advocates will create the echo chamber needed to garner support for a public sector that ensures our water utilities remain safe, affordable, and public for all future generations.

“ACRE’s collaboration with Topos on the Public Water Initiative will be invaluable to the organizing and popular education work we do on the role of Wall Street and predatory debt in attempts to privatize water, particularly in vulnerable communities of color. It has enabled us to translate our sometimes technical and wonky analysis into accessible language that resonates with our target audiences.”

~ Carrie Sloan, Research Director, Action Center on Race & the Economy

By incorporating PWI narrative best practices into policy fights, Topos and PWC’s joint hope is that water protection advocates will be able to engage people in government by not only reminding them of how public institutions such as our water systems are foundations of our wellbeing, but also by offering people a vivid picture of how democratic participation works, and can achieve results—particularly when citizens don’t stop with just voting, but take a step or two beyond that to make a difference.

Framing Science Brief 2: Metaphors

Metaphors can be indispensable tools for conveying complex or abstract ideas in simple, vivid and sticky ways. This Framing Science Brief discusses the power of metaphorical language and imagery, and the challenge of getting it right.

Read and download it here.

Framing Science Brief 1: Negating Doesn’t – The Downsides of Refutation

Many communicators have been advised to avoid repeating opponents’ arguments.

They have also been advised to knock down false or misleading claims rather than let them stand.

So is there any evidence one way or the other to help us decide which communications approach is more effective?

Topos begins our new series of Framing Science Briefs with a short piece that addresses the dilemma, “to explicitly refute or not to explicitly refute” – and points readers to some of the cognitive science research that bears on this choice.

Spoiler alert: There is lots of evidence that negating or refuting a statement is less effective than we think  – and it can even end up reinforcing exactly the wrong perspectives.

Read and download the whole thing here.

How to Talk About Saving the NEA

Advocates are speaking up—Is anyone listening?

Update: The President’s budget includes elimination of the NEA and NEH. 

In recent weeks, we’ve read many reports that the administration and/or Congress might eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts. Arts advocates and administrators have responded with pleas that federal arts funding is important and can’t be lost without ‘devastating’ consequences for arts organizations and society. Sadly, many of the arguments are ineffective because they only reach those who are already on board with the idea of public funding. Those explanations haven’t worked to change the landscape of public understanding in the past and they aren’t likely to build new support now.

The upcoming debate over funding for the NEA is an opportunity for advocates to build broader support and shift thinking about the arts as a public good.

Research by Topos for a Midwest arts organization revealed that the natural way most people think about the arts is a barrier to considering the arts as an important benefit or tool for successful communities. This makes it easy for those who use the NEA as an example of wasteful spending in order to undermine the role of government or advocate for different federal priorities.

Default thinking = The arts are something other people do

We face challenges in part because there is a widely held view of the arts as something other people enjoy—especially rich, older, white people. And if that’s the case, it’s hard for people to see why ‘the arts’ should benefit from public funding. So when our messengers are heads of major arts organizations housed in the intimidating temples of architecture in major cities, we trigger thinking of the arts as something for the elite. This isn’t true and it undermines our efforts to change the landscape of public understanding, build new supporters, and create political space for decision-makers.

Public awareness of the role of the arts is undermined by deeply entrenched perceptions. Yes, people like the arts, some quite a lot, but that’s not enough. Because the way they think about the arts is shaped by a number of common default patterns of thinking that obscure a sense of public responsibility or value.

We found some prevalent assumptions about the arts that work against our objective of positioning the arts as a public good:

  • The arts are entertainment and therefore, a private matter: Arts are about individual tastes, experiences, and enrichment — and individual expression by artists.
  • The arts are a good to be purchased: Therefore, most assume that the arts should succeed or fail, as any product does in the marketplace, based on what people want to purchase.
  • People expect to be passive, not active: People expect to have a mostly passive, consumer relationship with the arts. The arts will be offered to them, and therefore do not need to be created or supported by them.
  • The arts are a low priority: Even when people value art, it is rarely high on their list of priorities.

When advocates talk about art as a transcendent experience, important to well-being, a universal human need, etc., they are reinforcing a focus on private, individual concerns, not public, communal concerns. While many people like these messages, the messages don’t help them think of art as a contributor to community quality of life.

A new way to build support: the arts ripple effect

Of the many approaches explored in our testing, one stood out as having the most potential to shift thinking and conversations in a constructive direction. This approach emphasizes one key organizing idea: A thriving arts sector creates ripple effects of benefits throughout our community, even for those who don’t attend.

These are broad-based benefits that people already believe are real—and that they value:

A vibrant, thriving place: Neighborhoods are livelier, communities are strengthened, tourists and residents are attracted to the area, etc. Note that this goes well beyond the usual dollars-and-cents economic argument and is about creating and sustaining an environment that is memorable and a place where people want to live, visit, and work.

A more connected population: Diverse groups share common experiences, hear new perspectives, understand each other better, etc.

This organizing idea shapes the subsequent conversation in important ways. It moves people away from thinking about private concerns and personal interests (me) and toward thinking about public concerns and communal benefits (we).

Importantly, people who hear this message often shift from thinking of themselves as passive recipients of consumer goods, and begin to see their role as active citizens interested in addressing the public good.

The arts’ value to the public is a critical part of building support for the NEA, activating citizens as advocates, and offering decision-makers a rationale to decisionmakers that resonates with their constituents.

Don’t depend on data

People already believe these benefits exist — they don’t need studies or new data to get it. It’s just not the first thing they think about when they hear us talking about the arts. Our messages can build support by reminding people that they value the way the arts strengthen places and bring people together. The vast majority of people see these outcomes as reasons we all share responsibility for the arts, even those who don’t think of themselves as ‘goers’.

Advocates often use a different version of value, one based on the ‘return on investment’ that uses a dollars-and-cents case for funding. While it’s true that some decision-makers expect to see this economic impact data, our research reveals that it is not persuasive to the public and is not useful to build broad support for public funding.

When offering examples of NEA-funded initiatives, we should use those arts events and projects that underscore the ripple effect of benefits to the community. This is easy to do given the range of NEA project funding, new initiatives in creative placemaking through the Our Town initiative, and the geographic diversity of grants.

To do list

Here’s a checklist you can use:

✓ Arts Organization: Are the benefits created by an organization/event/institution that NEA supported?

✓ Concrete Description: Does the discussion give a concrete picture of arts experiences created by the organization?

✓ Vibrancy/Connectedness: Does the example include benefits that could be seen as examples of vibrancy/vitality or increased connectedness?

✓ Benefits to All: Does the example point out potential benefits to people who are not participating in the specific event?

✓ Behind the scenes: Does the discussion also remind people that this doesn’t happen by accident but requires investment, etc.?

✓ One of Many: When possible, it is helpful to mention additional examples in the discussion, which helps audiences focus on the broader point that a strong arts sector creates a range of benefits.

✓ Does the messenger support the concept of arts benefitting everyone? Our research recommends a local leader as speaker. Local leaders are trusted on this topic and can be a mayor, city official, chamber of commerce leader, well-known neighborhood leader, etc.

We can’t say the sky is falling—that undermines our efforts because most people won’t agree with us. We should advocate for good policy on immigration and health care, etc. because these changes could be incredibly devastating to the arts, artists and the communities where they live. It’s not responsible to fight only for the NEA budget in the face of other damaging proposals.

••••

Elected and appointed officials have successfully used this way of talking about the arts to build broader support and increase public funding:

● Connecticut officials doubled funding and tied grantmaking to strengthening neighborhoods and creating places we all want to live in and visit. A state official explained, “Instead of the money going out with no strings attached, we are placing the goal of creating a more vibrant community,” said Kip Bergstrom, deputy commissioner of the state Department of Economic & Community Development, which runs the Office of the Arts. “We want to put our money behind folks that are doing this well.”

Mallory State of the City ● In Cincinnati, former Mayor Mark Mallory used the Topos research findings in his state of the city speech to encourage broad giving from individuals (and found a perfect way to incorporate recognition of a large donation to the Symphony).

● In Providence, organizers of Waterfire, a regular public festival of music and street performance, have focused on their mission “to inspire Providence and its visitors by revitalizing the urban experience, fostering community engagement and creatively transforming the city by presenting Waterfire for all to enjoy.”

● And Mesa Arizona Mayor Scott Smith, speaking on a panel at the Republican National Convention, discussed his support for maintaining public funding of the arts even in a tough city budget year. “There is a direct connection between the health of the arts and culture in your community, and your ability to grow economically,” Smith said. “People want to live in a place that is vibrant, that is growing.”

Lessons from Fast Food Strikes

In April 2015, tens of thousands of workers, in well over 200 U.S. cities and in 40 nations, rallied for higher wages and benefits.  This growing movement is getting attention and having an impact, providing lessons for communicators.

The most effective communicators on this issue are Making it About All of Us.

By default, we all normally think of jobs as personal.  Pay, benefits and working conditions are matters for the employer and employee to settle. It can seem like “none of our business” – certainly not something outsiders have responsibility to resolve.

But to make it easier to build broad support for job quality policies, it is essential for communicators to turn the conversation into one that’s about all of us, one where we all have a stake, and a reason to take a stand – not just the workers in particular jobs or industries.

The most effective communicators on fast food strikes (which has now grown to include a range of workers in low wage jobs), whether they are experts, policymakers, advocates, or strikers themselves, connect the issue to “all of us” in four ways:

Connect personal wages to collective benefits: Topos research found that people want to support higher wages and benefits, but worry it will hurt businesses and the economy. Shining a light on how the economy really works avoids that obstacle and helps people see shared stakes:

For our communities and economy to thrive, jobs need to pay at least enough to let people spend on the basics. Economy-busting jobs pay so little that people can’t afford food, or to go the doctor, or to make basic repairs, which hurts all of us, as the economy slows down. Economy-boosting jobs that raise the wage and benefits floor create stronger communities and a better economy for all of us.

When strikers ask for higher wages or better benefits, they are directly living out the “boost or bust” story: They are pushing for compensation that will not only provide their own households with greater financial security, but will benefit their communities, as more people are able to engage in the buying-and-selling that keep local economies going.

“Now, it’s not just about fast food workers,” said Kendall Fells, organizing director for Fast Food Forward, in an interview with MSNBC. “Just about every low-wage service sector industry is getting involved, which is pretty much the heart of the American economy.

“Fast food workers’ strike fueled by other low-wage employees, Eric Garner,” by Emma Margolin, MCNBC, December 4, 2014

“People thought we were crazy to call for $15 an hour, but all across the country, cities, states and employers are raising wages significantly because of the stand we are taking,” Alvin Major, a KFC worker, said in the statement. “And so many different workers are joining our fight that we will win better pay so our families can succeed and our communities can prosper.

“Push for a $15 minimum wage goes to college,” By Aimee Picchi, CBS MONEYWATCH, March 31, 2015

Connect personal wages to collective costs: In their default ways of looking at things, it is relatively easy for people to justify the existence of bad jobs – from the idea of “starting at the bottom” to the idea that employees “knew what they were getting into” to the idea that if people want a better job, they can and should make that happen on their own by getting more schooling, taking more initiative, and so forth. Even workers in low wage jobs often share and voice some of these assumptions.

An important challenge for communicators who sympathize with strikers is to convey that certain jobs simply offer too little compensation, in a way that doesn’t sound like complaining or misplaced sympathy.

One approach communicators are using successfully is to point out that many full-time employees are paid so little they can and do receive publicly funded assistance like food stamps and health insurance. In our testing, this point puts audiences on the side of the employees, and is a concrete and compelling illustration of how some jobs are unacceptably “bad.” And when they learn this is a deliberate business strategy on the part of profitable companies that are basically asking taxpayers to subsidize their work force, people become enraged.

The low-wage business model practiced by many of the largest and most profitable employers in the country not only leaves many working families unable to afford the basics, but also imposes significant costs on the public as a whole,” Sarah Leberstein, a senior staff lawyer with the National Employment Law Project, testified recently before Connecticut lawmakers.

“Working, but Needing Public Assistance Anyway,” by Patricia Cohen, NY Times, April 12, 2015.

Importantly, our testing shows that this idea does NOT increase stigmas about public assistance, and if anything makes people more sympathetic to those who rely on it – and 3 angrier at companies that abuse the system. Furthermore, this point is one of the most effective ways of establishing a line in the sand, meaning that certain compensation arrangements are simply unacceptable.

Position the strikers as “workers who are sticking together”: Our research on unions finds there is a long way to go to repair Americans’ relationship with the labor movement. The idea of a “strike” is often met with disapproval by those who are uncomfortable with confrontation, or who believe people “should be thankful to have any job in this economy.”

This article won’t go into detail about our research regarding unions, but the bottom line for communicators is that the most effective approach is usually to focus on workers’ right to stick together in order to speak with a more powerful voice. The emotional power of the food strike news coverage is often this simple image at the heart of the story.

In Chicago, [Nancy] Salgado says the management has not only refrained from retaliating against strikers, but has actually started treating staff with more respect. Yet the real reward she says she’s gained from the movement is a fresh sense of solidarity with other mothers like her. “We bond together,” she says, “because we come united. … One of the strongest things I’ve learned in this organization is that being united as a family gives you a lot of strength to move forward.

“Fed Up: Women Fast-Food Workers Fight Back,” by Michelle Chen, Msmagazine.com, March 28, 2015

Reinforce the idea of a social movement: The sheer breadth and scale of events, thousands of workers in well over 200 U.S. cities and in 40 nations, allows each of us to picture our communities and ourselves as part of the story – the strikes are happening across America, as opposed to more locally or narrowly. Just as importantly, a more widespread strike is more likely to trigger our sense that maybe what’s happening is good and right – people are persuaded by what others are thinking and doing. (For one relevant social science study, see Robert Cialdini, 2001, Harnessing the science of persuasion, Harvard Business Review.)

Terrence Wise, a Burger King worker from Kansas City, Missouri, and a national leader for the Fight for $15 push, said more than 2,000 groups including Jobs With Justice and the Center for Popular Democracy will show their support as well. “This will be the biggest mobilization America has seen in decades,” Wise said at the rally as pedestrians walked past on the busy street.

“Fast-Food Labor Organizers Plan Actions for April 15,” by Candice Choi, AP Food Industry Writer

“When we started it was very hard to get people to sign up — they were scared, ‘I might lose my job,’” said Ms. Brooks, who became a fast-food worker after funding for her job as a youth counselor was eliminated. “But this movement is really growing. People who didn’t know who we were, they now know who we are.”

“Movement to Increase McDonald’s Minimum Wage Broadens Its Tactics,” by Steven Greenhouse, NY Times, March, 30, 2015

In Detroit, the Rev. Charles Williams II, president of National Action Network, thanked protesters for their support and encouraged fast-food customers to aid the effort. “We need them to sacrifice with us,” he said. “We are sacrificing our time, the workers are sacrificing their wages. We need people who eat fast food to sacrifice their coffee, to sacrifice their McMuffin.”

“Fast-food workers strike, protest for higher pay,” by John Bacon, USA Today, December 5, 2013

Stories framed in these ways have the potential to turn the strikes from “spectator” events for most Americans, into ones where we see that we all have a stake.

Conclusion

Americans don’t automatically side with strikers, but if handled well, strike stories can be compelling openings for conversations about the kind of economy and the kind of nation we want. Communicators who are prepared with compelling messages about how better jobs are better for all of us, about how profitable and powerful employers could afford to do better, about how these employers may be “gaming the system,” and about Americans’ right to band together to agree on what they want – have a good chance of gaining new allies in the fight for better job quality and more broadly shared prosperity.

Framing Job Quality as Common Sense

Scheduling, Paid Leave, and More

The Topos Partnership, based on a significant, multi-method research effort, has arrived at a powerful strategy to lift public understanding for a range of job quality policies (The Ford Foundation provided support for this research). The simple common sense idea that thriving communities and a strong economy depend on employers providing reasonable compensation for work has the power to lift a range of job quality solutions. This frame is quickly becoming established in efforts to increase the minimum wage, but it also has the potential to lift a range of job quality policies and ultimately shape public understanding of how economic policy should work.

The Need

In 2015, members of Congress, and officials in many communities and states, are considering policies beyond raising minimum wage to enhance job quality and compensation – requiring paid family and medical leave, paid sick days, improving scheduling and hours in service industries, and offering part-time workers more hours before new hiring. While each policy could have its own message strategy, framing these discussions within a unified organizing concept of economy-boosting jobs will build broad understanding for the need for all of the policies, rather than approaching them piecemeal. Over time, we can use each effort to build public support for the entire agenda.

“Economy-boosting or economy-busting jobs?”

There are a number of important reasons to push for greater job quality – basic fairness to workers who are helping create wealth for corporate employers, better child outcomes from lifting working families out of poverty, and so forth. But too often these rationales for job quality policies are trumped by concern that “now is the wrong time to be making additional demands on businesses,” or by the thought that “people have to work harder and get a better education if they want better pay,” et cetera. Even sympathetic audiences can easily conclude that these “costs to business” will kill jobs and hurt the economy.

Topos found that a powerful way to overcome or inoculate against the “job killer” perspective is to make the positive economic case for job quality requirements:

For our communities and economy to thrive, jobs need to pay at least enough to spend on the basics. When people can’t afford food, or to go the doctor, or to make basic repairs, it hurts all of us, as the economy slows down. Economy-boosting jobs that allow people to keep up basic spending strengthen families and communities. When we raise the wage and benefits floor so that companies can’t get away with offering economy-busting jobs – including ones that require workers to receive public assistance like food stamps just to get by – we are improving the economy for all of us.

A range of job quality issues that are gaining momentum now can take advantage of this frame, which redefines what a good economy means.

Note that while some particular audiences will respond to other frames, such as gender equity, corporate greed, et cetera, our research suggests that to expand engagement and support, and to give even some of our own potential supporters “permission” to demand more, this economic case builds broader support for policy proposals.

Paid family medical leave and paid sick days are designed to protect people from losing income when they are sick, or to care for a family member, or take care of a new baby, and so on. When people lose paychecks in order to care for themselves or family members, it not only hurts families, it also slows down spending, and ends up affecting all of us. We should look at all job standards to make sure that jobs boost rather than bust the economy.

Minimum wage increases are increasingly being framed as making sure that jobs pay enough for the basics, ensuring that workers can contribute to more successful and secure communities and families, and a stronger economy for all of us. Profitable, powerful companies have been able to use their influence to keep wages low in a number of labor market sectors – and extremely low in tipped jobs, of course. An increase will boost, not only individual households, but also the communities these workers live and spend in. Small businesses see the difference in increased business when people in their community can afford more.

Improving scheduling practices can be framed as ensuring that workers earn more and retain employment, making these jobs better for the local economy. When workers have more notice of scheduled hours, they are better able to plan for child care and transportation needs, making getting to work and staying on the job more likely. Likewise, policies that require employers to pay for a minimum of hours when a shift is cancelled, or practices that offer workers more hours before additional part-timers are hired, are easily framed as ways of ensuring that jobs compensate better. Pay equity, too, can be framed in terms of benefits for us all. If women are paid less than 80% of what men are for the same job, this is another way of letting profitable employers get away with putting less money back into the community. Women are frequently primary earners for their households, and when these households can’t afford the basics, we all pay the price – both in terms of an economic slowdown, and the public assistance workers need to get by. (Note that the economy-boosting jobs frame is about practical issues on the surface, but people infer that it is also about fundamental values like fairness and the dignity of work.)

More broadly, to the extent that any policy choice helps create communities of people who are more able to boost economic activity – i.e. spending on the basics – it may be easier to promote broad support for that policy. Even when a given policy choice is not specifically related to compensation, it can be about making places thrive, for instance. (The Topos recommendation is about better job compensation, but the following are reasonable if untested extensions of the successful framing approach that emerged from the testing.)

While making it easier for workers to telecommute (for example, through tax credits to pay for needed equipment) is partly about strengthening family life and reducing the time burden of commuting, it also allows more people to hold jobs who would otherwise not be able to, due to family demands. When more people are able to stay in the workforce (while also being good parents, for instance), communities are more likely to thrive.

Likewise, promoting STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education for girls is partly about addressing a significant gender gap in this area, but it is also about creating a more thriving economy overall. Jobs that require STEM training are likely to be economy-boosting jobs.

When we emphasize that all of these policies ensure jobs provide enough compensation, we build broader understanding of the need to raise the floor on job standards for more secure families, stronger communities and a healthier economy – policy choices that are right for all of us.

The Tipping Point on Minimum Wage

With Walmart’s recent announcement lifting employees’ base pay to at least $10 per hour, similar news from other employers, and the successful sweep of minimum wage and paid sick leave campaigns all across the nation in 2014, are we seeing a tipping point in how people view measures to increase job compensation? Will “What’s good for workers is good for America” become established as the new cultural common sense?

The move by Walmart and other employers, and the wins at the ballot box, didn’t happen by accident. Workers and organized labor have been fighting for job improvements for years, as have smart advocates at the local, state and national levels. All that hard work and strategy is paying off, not just in short-term wins, but also, we believe, in a new cultural common sense about how the economy really works and should work.

Since we started working on strategic framing for job quality issues four years ago, we have noticed a groundswell of effective framing by advocates. An approach that we call the “economy-boosting/economy-busting jobs” frame, that is gaining more currency among advocates, links the fate of low-wage workers to the fate of all Americans. The opposite of “trickle down,” this frame makes the common sense point that we all depend on money flowing from workers – their ability to spend on at least the basics – keeps communities and our economy going. Our research finds that most Americans want to support requirements to raise the wage and benefits floor, but they worry about hurting business, killing jobs, and ultimately hurting workers. By emphasizing that better compensation for workers boosts the economy, we allow people to set aside those worries.

For our communities and economy to thrive, jobs need to pay at least enough to spend on the basics. Economy-busting jobs pay so little that people can’t afford food, or to go the doctor, or to make basic repairs, which hurts all of us, as the economy slows down. Economy-boosting jobs that raise the wage and benefits floor create stronger communities and a better economy for all of us.

This common sense idea is quickly becoming a default frame for talking about job quality issues. We see it in media commentary, and hear it coming from advocates, business owners, and elected leaders, including leaders in the White House. Note the following response to Walmart’s announcement by Holly Sklar, who is consistently compelling in framing this issue:

“Walmart’s low wages have been a drag on the U.S. economy, with many of its employees relying on public assistance just to get by. We need to restore the eroded purchasing power of the federal minimum wage so that paying wages that workers can live on is not optional. That will boost business and strengthen our economy.”

Holly Sklar, CEO, Business for a Fair Minimum Wage

Topos research indicates that when this framing is used to make the case for one policy, such as minimum wage increases, advocates are paving the way for future successes on other related policies. By explaining the causes and solutions in a way that offers a new picture of how a good economy works, this approach ends up lifting multiple progressive issues, in a way that has potential to last.

Here are just a few examples of effective communications from a range of 2014 campaigns that we believe can begin to establish a new cultural common sense on the economy:

“Yes, it would mean businesses – like the Frontiersman – would spend more on labor. But at the same time, it also means our minimum wage employees would have more cash in their pockets to feed their families, pay rent and to spend on ‘luxury items,’ such as an occasional meal out, or a trip to the movies. All that means more money turning over in the Mat-Su Valley. That’s why we support the initiative on the Nov. 4 ballot that would raise Alaska’s minimum wage to $8.75 per hour on Jan. 1, 2015, to $9.75 on Jan. 1, 2016, and thereafter adjust it for inflation.”

Frontiersman News, Editorial

 

“By giving a raise to the nearly 170,000 Arkansans who make minimum wage, our economy will get a much needed shot in the arm. I hear from Arkansas business owners all the time, and one of their main concerns these days is demand for their products. Better wages for workers means increased sales for small business owners as families have a little more each month to plug back into the economy.”

Senator Mark Pryor

 

“If Proposition J in San Francisco and Measure FF in Oakland both pass, it will give a raise to 190,000 low-wage workers in the Bay Area, according to economists from UC-Berkeley. Their take-home pay will jump by $523 million a year, most of which they will spend in small businesses and local mom-and-pop shops.”

Guest Column published in the San Francisco Examiner, Alysabeth Alexander Vice-President of Politics for SEIU Local 1021.

 

“Jobs must pay enough for workers to meet their basic needs — like paying for a doctor visit or putting gas in the car. At the current minimum wage, a full-time salary is about $15,000 per year, far below what workers need to support themselves and their families in any community in Nebraska…Boosting workers’ wages would increase consumer spending; this would be good news for Nebraska businesses because it would in turn increase demand for their goods and services.”

State Senator Jeremy Nordquist

 

“It’s common knowledge that people with more money in their pockets will spend that at businesses across South Dakota. That’s money that will ripple through our economy and create opportunities for all people.”

Zach Crago, Executive Director, South Dakota Democratic Party

 

“We know that thousands of Wisconsin workers cannot make it on $7.25. We also know that when workers can’t afford the basics, the whole economy slows down and everyone loses. It’s just economic common-sense: Putting more money into the hands of working people ensures they have more to spend on goods and services, increasing demand in our economy and spurring job growth.”

Citizen Action of Wisconsin

 

By advancing the Boost or Bust Jobs Frame, advocates are starting to establish a new cultural common sense, and broadening the consensus for these issues beyond those who are active in social movements, which in turn creates a more conducive environment for social movement success.

Talking About Income Inequality

There’s a lot of public dialogue about income inequality these days.

In a new memo, Topos principals consider the best approach to building public understanding on addressing this economic issue in light of their recently released research on building support for job quality policies like paid time off and higher minimum wages.

A dramatic rise in references to income inequality  – among leaders, journalists and advocates, and disseminated in all media – suggests that influential individuals feel the climate has changed in ways that make an inequality discussion more palatable than it has been in the past.

Since 2008, the economy has changed and the Occupy movement made headlines, so can we assume that earlier cautions no longer apply?

We should be very careful about assuming that is true – partly because the challenges discussed in the 2008 paper mostly arise from fundamental cultural perspectives and cognitive tendencies, that don’t change quickly, if ever.

The Pew Center conducts a regular survey of American values and in a recent report, the Center’s founding director Andrew Kohut and his co-author conclude that there’s been no real shift in public opinion about economic inequality despite the fact that there’s been more media attention to the issue since the Occupy movement and the 2012 election.

Overall, our goal is to help see people see the bigger picture – of what is happening, how it is happening, who is affected, etc. With this in mind, we may be better off not using the word inequality as a leading idea, and using other words for now.

Economy Boosting Jobs + Raising Minimum Wage

Communicating to Increase the Minimum Wage

Efforts to build support for increasing the minimum wage have had several recent successes, leading to new state and local policies across the country. Now the federal debate over increasing the national minimum is heating up. This is an opportune moment to make significant gains for workers and communities, and our whole economy, if we can understand and promote the perspectives that lead to policy wins.

To take this conversation to the next level, and create momentum for change, we need a story that clarifies for people why raising the minimum wage is good for all of us. Fortunately, we have that story.

Our research finds that we can succeed by having a conversation that avoids the current dynamic that pits business against workers. We need a conversation that is focused not on what businesses need, or on what individuals need, but on what all of us and our economy need.

To create a new common sense on the issue, we need to connect the decisions businesses make with the consequences for all of us – workers, families, communities, and our economy.

The most effective organizing idea for this new conversation is that we simply can’t sustain our economy or our communities, with jobs that fail to compensate adequately. These economy-busting jobs are stalling our economy and our communities. Increasing the minimum wage boosts communities and the overall economy by providing more Americans with income to spend on the basics.

A variety of points help to support and flesh out this core idea.

  • It helps to draw a distinction between “economy-boosting” and “economy-busting” jobs – clear and memorable terms that help people focus on the core issue.
  • “Affording the basics” means spending on things like food, doctor visits, or necessary repairs; using these words and others clarifies for people exactly how little some jobs are paying.
  • The solution is to “lift the wage and benefits floor” – a simple and vivid image that helps people quickly grasp the policy solution.
  • Explaining what prevents better compensation is also helpful. The idea that “profitable corporations are using their power and influence to hold down compensation” helps people see the current state of affairs as intentional, not unavoidable.
  • When appropriate, it is helpful to explain to people that the minimum wage is so low, that many people with full-time jobs qualify for food stamps and other public assistance. This comparison powerfully illustrates what it really means to be working and poor.
  • People don’t blame the worker; they turn their anger toward the employer, and the policy that allows it to happen.
  • Finally, including a role for citizens in the conversation reinforces intentionality: we have the power to create the economy and quality of life we want.

Here’s just one example of language that helps shift people’s perspectives:

Economists sometimes talk about the need for economy-boosting jobs. These are jobs where people make enough money to maintain the basic spending levels that keep the economy and communities going. If people can’t spend on basics like food, repairs, and so on, the economy stalls. 

And here’s an example that brings in even more of the points:

Our government has a specific role when it comes to the job market: to maintain a “wage and benefits floor.” Powerful corporations actively use their influence to hold down wages and benefits, but if jobs don’t compensate enough to maintain “Basic Spending” levels – on things like food, getting things repaired, and so on, the economy stalls. Wages are so low that millions of full time workers are below the poverty line and qualify for food stamps. Policies to raise the wage and benefits floor and restore basic spending will boost the economy. For example, to regain our prosperity, people can insist on increasing the minimum wage.

Why does this approach have such power?

First, it’s simple. It clarifies the economic problem. Instead of wallowing in an overwhelming array of economic worries including unemployment, a roller coaster stock market, inequality, deficits, and so on, it offers a simple picture of an economic dynamic we can understand and do something about.

More broadly, it provides a new explanation for how the economy really works. The economy we care about is the one that affects people’s wallets, and it is whether jobs make it possible for people to support their families that drives the economy. This idea ties the fate of low-wage workers to the fate of us all. When they hear that a higher floor lifts families, as well as communities and our economy, people can readily see how policies like increasing the minimum wage and guaranteeing paid sick time will improve quality of life and economic circumstances for us all. It sets the stage for a conversation about inequality and distribution of wealth, by clearly illustrating why we’re all better off when those with less, have more.

Finally, this conversation is a very values-based conversation. It taps into beliefs about how work should be valued and how people with jobs should be able to support themselves and their families. And it reinforces interdependence – we sink or swim together.

We need every ally to rally around these culture-shifting ideas and proactively push them into public discourse. Culture change doesn’t happen by accident; it happens when a catalyst sparks new thinking, which advocates can encourage.

As a basic approach for organizing our communications, the idea that we can’t sustain our communities and the economy on low-wage jobs is a simple, common sense explanation of why job quality policies matter to us all. Most important, it is a big idea that accomplishes a number of important goals:

  • It brings new supporters to the cause with a helpful new perspective that competes with the idea that businesses can’t afford to do more.
  • For those who are already sympathetic, it provides practical as well as humanitarian reasons to make the case.
  • Finally, it offers everyone a clear and memorable way to summarize why the issue matters. With a topic as complex as jobs and the economy, this is critical.

About the Research

Policy campaigns are often won (or lost) because of the underlying assumptions and understandings that people bring to the debate in the first place.

When it comes to jobs, there are fundamental, core beliefs people hold that set the foundation for campaigns and legislative battles. These include ideas about work, about the relationship between employers and employees, about what society and government can expect from either one, and so on.

The Ford Foundation asked Topos to research those core beliefs that make it hard for the public to understand the policy solutions that will work and help the cause. Topos spent a year conducting this research, talking with hundreds of people around the country to unearth the hidden obstacles to public support on job quality policies like minimum wage, and to develop a core organizing idea that could overcome these obstacles.

Topos conducted anthropological research in coffee shops, parks, people’s homes and place of work; virtual community forums where people debated ideas online; and conducted talkback tests, where we exposed individual participants to a single idea to determine what sticks and what changes people’s thinking about job policies.

The recommendations above are what we learned from these months of research.

Why previous arguments have fallen short

While we face many obstacles in this conversation, there are some fundamental ideas in public discourse that clearly prevent progress.

When it comes to job policies, people unfortunately often default to viewing the world through the eyes of employers

First, we face a major barrier when the public conversation on jobs is focused primarily on “what business needs”, which is a default way of thinking about minimum wage increases.

Average Americans, whatever their occupation or political orientation, often look at issues from the perspective of an owner trying to maintain a profitable business. When thinking in this way, they make a number of assumptions that undermine our policy goals.

Here’s how people default to thinking about job policy.

From a business perspective, employee compensation is a cost, a burden to business. Any increase in wages, or expansion of work standards such as sick leave, creates an additional strain on business that might harm profitability and even lead to cutbacks or failure.

And if businesses are the source of jobs, it then follows that an employer’s need should trump an employee’s need, because if the employer can’t afford to hire, there are no jobs.

Finally, business executives, as the most knowledgeable about what business needs, are taken as the authority on this topic.

The result is that even people who are sympathetic to workers’ interests often feel there is no choice but to give business what they want. This frame, advanced by the opposition, and readily embraced by most Americans, is a powerful, common sense idea — and therefore a powerful obstacle that advocates must find a way to diminish.

After the situation has been reframed in terms of basic spending and economy-boosting jobs, however, the problem for businesses is no longer that their wages are too high, but rather that demand is too low, because too many low-wage, economy-busting jobs mean fewer customers.

Other patterns of thinking are equally entrenched and unhelpful to promoting a more progressive conversation. For example, one very common pattern is to focus on what individuals need.

Focusing on struggling individuals and families creates different barriers

When looking at these issues through the perspective of an individual, people think about the ways in which each of us has to navigate the work world, and they don’t consider ways to change the work world. The lens on the individual obscures the broader systemic issues, and the collective solutions.

Furthermore, when focused on the individual, it is quite logical to view the issue this way.

Not all jobs can be great jobs.

Everyone starts out at the entry-level, and has to move up in the work world. It is inevitable that there will be a hierarchy of jobs.

If a person is unsuccessful in the work world it is due to bad choices or a character flaw.

The apparent solution, in this way of thinking, is for each individual to get the education to be able to advance. While progressives of course support increased opportunities for education, we also want to lift all jobs, and reject the notion that some jobs need to pay poverty level compensation.

Finally, though people recognize that economic conditions matter, a whole range of anti-poor stereotypes continue to persist. That is why it is relatively easy to trigger the idea that if a person is unsuccessful in the work world it is due to bad choices or a character flaw.

On the other hand, a businessperson can be a very compelling authority on the role of increased wages in boosting demand at small business. This is a far more effective approach than having a business person talk about how higher wages can help retain good employees (which people assume a smart business person would do anyway).

These themes allow advocates for increasing minimum wage to play offense for a change, insisting that these policies will boost our economy, instead of the defensive stance we so often have on these issues that it won’t “hurt business”. (When we raise this issue, we’re stuck fighting our way out of the opponent’s frame on minimum wage, not a place where we get much traction. Even when we offer new data and research, people tend to ignore us because they’ve already reached a conclusion about the minimum wage increases from a business operator’s perspective.)

In conclusion, the idea that we can’t sustain our communities and the economy on low-wage jobs is a simple, common sense explanation of why job quality policies matter to us all. Most important, as way of organizing our communications on minimum wage research and policy, it is an idea that accomplishes a number of important goals:

  • It brings new supporters to the cause with a helpful new perspective that competes with the idea that businesses can’t afford to do more.
  • For those who are already sympathetic, it provides practical as well as humanitarian reasons to make the case.
  • Finally, it offers everyone a clear and memorable way to summarize why the issue matters. With a topic as complex as jobs and the economy, this is critical.

Labor Day Boost

Happy Labor Day! Celebrate economy-boosting jobs with our new video.

This “Simply-Put” video provides a brief illustration of how to make the core points emerging from newly released Topos research on communicating job quality, including minimum wage and paid sick days. We expect this video will be a great tool for sharing the research findings with colleagues, field staff, supporters, and others. It’s a terrific way to start a conversation – or to wrap up a presentation about building support for job quality initiatives. Check it out! And then read more about our findings.

 

New Job Quality Research Findings Build on Recent Success

Advocates and strategists around the country have achieved some recent successes on a range of job quality policies – especially higher minimum wages and guaranteed paid sick days. From one perspective, these successes indicate the potential to “turn the corner” on job quality debates, and achieve long-term improvements.

On the other hand, people involved in these struggles tell us that the battles are often fought “uphill” against stubborn resistance of various kinds – not just from self-interested industry opponents, but also from decision-makers and the public.

In a multi-phase research effort over the past year, the Topos Partnership has explored Americans’ thinking about these aspects of job quality, and ways of creating more support for policies that would improve our labor market.

In the course of this research we identified a set of persistent, broadly shared ideas in public discourse that can derail conversation about job quality policies, and have developed a practical communications framework that helps people think more constructively about the relationship between jobs, people, corporate actions and the economy.

Our intention was to help communicators in a number of ways:

  • Persuade some who are currently not on our side
  • Increase the confidence of people who are on our side
  • Offer decision-makers models of how to talk persuasively
  • Tie a number of issues together
  • Create a new common sense.

The Problem

Research with a diverse group of hundreds of Americans established that a handful of strong, default perspectives – that collectively feel like “the common sense” on the issue – often undermine support for job quality policies, even among progressive audiences. Importantly, each of these perspectives is based on (partial) truth, and is therefore reinforced by experience and can seem undeniable.

Two of the strongest default perspectives related to job quality focus, respectively, on what businesses need, and what individuals need. Opponents of the job quality agenda typically emphasize the former, while supporters often emphasize the latter.

The Topos research found that to succeed at important framing goals – including broadening the base of support and offering sympathetic audiences more compelling ways of thinking and talking about the topic – it is helpful to focus on a different set of needs: namely what we (collectively), our economy and our communities need. Essentially, to counter the argument that economic success depends on giving business what it wants, we need to reframe the idea of how the economy works. Rather than focus on either individuals or business, this focus ties the two together in a helpful way.

The following core story effectively reframes job quality topics in a way that shifts thinking and engages new support.

If jobs don’t pay enough for workers to afford the basics, the economy slows down. Profitable companies could compensate better but choose not to.

The essential contrast boils down to a choice between “economy-boosting” and “economy-busting” jobs. Some advocates have used versions of this organizing idea for a while now. Our research confirms the effectiveness of the frame for building broad support and new understanding among the public, and provides essential new points like the value of explaining that jobs need to provide enough for “the basics” — food, repairs, clothing, and more.

Conclusion – a “Big Idea”

Importantly, we set out to identify framing that can help not just with one or two specific policies, but promotes new attitudes toward the broader idea of improving jobs for all workers in our economy.

The recommendation is effective at this level, but goes even further. In the end, it offers an alternative common sense about how our economy works, what kind of economy we want and need, and how to achieve it.

If communicators succeed in conveying this vision – of a society that thrives when everyone has the means and the security to maintain spending on the basics – a lot of our policy debates will be less difficult in the future.

The Power and Pitfalls of Talking Inequality

A new Congressional Budget Office paper reviewing income inequality concludes that the pattern of increasing inequality will continue for years to come — unless we decide to make some policy shifts or there is some other major economic change.

Many advocates will be inclined to reference inequality and this new CBO paper as they promote policy solutions, since it seems to present such a natural news hook for advocates to review and revive policy proposals, such as those that make it easier for employees to stick together in the workplace.

In this essay — part of the Topos Library of articles with framing advice relevant to many issues — the authors (Topos principals Axel Aubrun and Joe Grady) discuss inequality as an organizing idea for communications.

From one point of view, this focus on Inequality is justified and even morally essential. What could be more important than trying to address the many areas in American society where one group is disadvantaged relative to others? Observations about Inequality aren’t just true, they’re also at the heart of many people’s motivation to become involved. Much of the passion that drives activism and advocacy springs from people’s instinctive rejection of Inequality, and their commitment to working against it.

BUT, does a commitment to reducing Inequality mean that we know how to talk about Inequality? Years of research on how Americans understand and talk about social issues suggest that, depending on the audience, discussions of Inequality must overcome important and complex challenges. In fact, the findings show clearly that when we talk directly about Inequality, listeners often take away a message that is the opposite of what we intended, and despite our skill and our good intentions, the discussion can end up doing more harm than good. While there are certainly some audiences that respond exactly as hoped, communications that are targeted at “the general public” can often fall on deaf ears, or worse, when they focus on this theme.

The reasons have partly to do with American assumptions and values – and at an even deeper level, with the (universal) nature of “everyday thinking,” and the mental tools people everywhere use to think about the world.

The authors review a number of pitfalls communicators should try to avoid and offer advocates ways to work toward the goals the they care about while avoiding these unfortunate traps.

Read the rest.

The Half the Oil Plan

Topos is proud to be working with the Union of Concerned Scientists on how best to communicate their Half the Oil Plan – an initiative to cut projected US oil usage in half in twenty years.

Last month, Joe Grady of Topos spoke at their Board Meeting in Cambridge, Massachusetts to lay out in detail how our research insights help convey the plan in ways that resonate with the broadest range of potential supporters and can help build support and momentum among policymakers.

It’s exciting to see our findings translated so effectively in the animation below, which they have been using to explain their initiative.

Have a look.

 

Reframing Privatization Schemes

Topos is often invited to share our work on reframing privatization with groups that are on the front lines of countering efforts to shift public assets and public responsibilities to private companies.

Topos has found that when the topic of privatization is framed simply as an issue of cost effectiveness, average people assume that private enterprise can likely offer services more cheaply and efficiently than government, and they have a “let’s give it a try!” attitude. They don’t become aware of the pitfalls of privatization schemes until it is too late.

However, when the issue is reframed as a matter of handing over control of important public assets and public responsibilities, people quickly take a much more critical and skeptical view of what might go wrong in a privatization scheme.  These doubts deepen if people are asked to consider whether we can count on private companies to do a good job when they are essentially given a monopoly or they are given a long term contract.

This month, Topos principal Axel Aubrun spoke at the 14th Conference of the National Association of State Highway and Transportation Unions (NASHTU).  Axel — together with Nancy Tate (Executive Director of the League of Women Voters) and Scott Amey (Project on Government Oversight)  — shared a panel entitled,  Outsourcing, Privatization, Contracting Out – Current Outsourcing Trends and How to Communicate About the Dangers Effectively.

Read more:

Focus on Personal Stories

Close Up vs. Big Picture Stories: The Role of Individual Examples in Advocacy Communications

Research and real-life experience, plus perspectives from the social and cognitive sciences, tell us that “putting the face on the story” can often backfire. In this memo, we explore the reasons why this approach can go so wrong – from diverting attention away from systemic factors, to inviting the wrong questions and judgments – and suggest other kinds of stories that are more likely to lead to constructive engagement.

The Power of Stories

Effective communicators are essentially great storytellers. People can absorb and remember a great story far longer than lists of statistics, and the right story can even help people hold onto facts and figures that otherwise wouldn’t stick. Most important, the right kinds of stories convey a broader narrative that can help bring about lasting social change.

However, communicators often limit themselves to one particular type of story, one that can do more harm than good – a close-up portrait of a struggling individual:

  • the mom who can’t stay home with a sick child,
  • the child who is facing obesity-related health issues,
  • the father of four who can’t get a job and is about to be evicted, and so on.

When we show these faces and tell these stories, we hope that audiences will engage with our issues in a new way, and care about them as they haven’t before. We hope that they will step up to support a policy, write a check or volunteer their time.

And our assumption that these stories are bound to work is even bolstered by “proof.” We ourselves are drawn in by these narratives – of suffering, of injustice, of redemption, of triumph. We know that journalists want to “put a face on the story,” and that our fellow advocates feel this is important.

For all these reasons, communicators are often surprised when these stories backfire, when a listener offers responses such as:

  • I don’t get paid if I don’t work – why should she?
  • That kid’s parents better stop feeding him/her junk food.
  • That’s sad, but what can you do when times are so tough for everyone?

One reaction to these responses might be to decry the state of American culture – how can people be so uncaring? Another might be to look for a more “sympathetic” individual to feature, assuming that racism or classism might be getting in the way of people’s true sympathetic nature.

What we should be doing, though, is questioning the very structure of the story. The fact is that close-up portraits of individuals are a type of story that, when treated as a main focus of communications, almost always works against building support for progressive policy change.

Why “Close Ups” are Ineffective Stories

The idea that “putting a face on the story” is an effective communications approach can seem so intuitive as to be unquestionable. But in reality, there are very important reasons to question it. In truth, this kind of story can make it difficult or impossible to convey the big picture ideas we are trying to get across. Why?

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.

What to do?

It is easy to feel that we are damned if we do, damned if we don’t. Individual stories and images engage attention, but often lead thinking down the wrong paths. So what to do?

The conclusion we at Topos have reached is that communicators must take on the challenge of finding vivid, compelling ways of telling the “big picture” story. How do we take the complex causality, the statistical patterns, the interventions that we know are so important, and convey them in ways our audiences can grasp and relate to?

One way or another, we need to make the wide shot come alive (to use a movie-making analogy), rather than quickly resorting to the close-up on an individual. Here are some suggestions for ways to tell compelling stories without the pitfalls of the individual close-up.

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. This story could even include 2 or 3 quotes from students, as long as the story stays focused on the solution.

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.

The bottom line: We can’t and shouldn’t eliminate people from our communications – it’s a question of emphasis and ordering. While it would be nice if effective communication were as easy as “putting a face on the issue,” communicators need to take on the challenge of making other factors just as compelling as the individual human interest stories we are all tempted to focus on. When we do this, we stand a better chance of building public support for lasting change.