Behind the Kitchen Door

Congratulations to Saru Jayaraman for a successful launch of her new book, Behind the Kitchen Door.  We’re proud to stand with Saru in bringing public attention to the shameful $2.13 tipped minimum wage that undercuts workers, communities and the economy.

The Explanation Gap

Informed citizens are the foundation of effective democracy, but informing citizens depends on providing the context for issues that most mass media neglect; that’s where nonprofits come in. Read the whole report.

Lead, Crime, and Politics

In a recent cover article for Mother Jones, Kevin Drum tells a fascinating story about how researchers have uncovered a surprising connection: The sharp increase in violent crime in post-war America, and the sharp decline since the 1990s, may be largely due to one surprising factor – leaded vs. unleaded gasoline.

If true (and the evidence certainly seems compelling), the story of this discovery is important food for thought on many levels, with a number of lessons for communicating effectively on social issues.

Moral vs. material dimensions of an issue

It is all too easy to interpret any public issue in terms of “good guys” and “bad guys” at the simplest level.

  • Child abuse is committed by “bad guys” – so there is little that the rest of the community can do beyond policing and imprisoning.
  • Farmers are “good guys” so there is no reason to be concerned about the practices they use to eliminate insects or maximize crop yields.
  • Even the economy is shaped by the choices of “good guys” (who work hard, are loyal to employees, make responsible purchases etc.) and “bad guys” (who spend beyond their means, treat employees cruelly, and so forth).

What these tempting interpretations often miss are the “material” dimensions of the story. How do housing arrangements – which increase or decrease social isolation – end up affecting rates of child maltreatment? How does excessive nitrogen fertilizer affect the ecosystems of downstream lakes, rivers and oceans? How is the economy shaped by laws that make it harder or easier for workers to stick together for their common interests?

The lead poisoning story provides a beautiful illustration of the fact that the “material” dimension, that can seem dry and technical, is often much more important than the simple and appealing moral story about “bad guys” (violent criminals) and the role of parenting, video games, and moral values in creating them.  In fact, the moral story is often deliberately used to distract public attention from the material concerns that policy can address.

To regulate or not to regulate

One of the most contentious issues in American life is the extent to which citizens ought to regulate business. Even many Democrats – who are more likely to favor active government – are concerned that putting constraints on businesses can hurt profitability and ultimately put people out of work. The link between leaded gasoline and violent crime offers a striking case study of how our communities and our whole society have a deep stake in the choices made by businesses. And a simple collective decision – i.e. the (government-mandated) phase-out of leaded gasoline – had tremendous benefits for all of us.

Connecting the dots

Scientific findings often get pushed out of policy debate. On a range of issues – evolution, global warming, drug addiction and so on – scientists are ignored or even ridiculed by politicians.  This dynamic, once constrained to the most extreme, religious right wing, is becoming increasingly common.  This story provides a clear example of the need to rely on science and facts in policymaking.

However, science gets pushed out of public discourse on social issues not just by anti-science activists, but more often by advocates’ inability to provide a simple explanation that people can hear and embrace. It can’t be stated too many times that if people don’t have a simple grasp of how an issue works, they have little chance of engaging with it constructively. Insiders know this on some level, but often fall short when it comes to offering audiences a clear, common sense picture of the important dynamics at work on a given issue. The leaded gasoline story is a great illustration of how understanding the story that links A to B to C makes all the difference. Not only would understanding of this connection have made a difference in the 1950s, it is a critical connection to communicate now.  As Mother Jones points out, the inability to see the big picture and connect the dots between issues is a significant obstacle to moving forward on dealing with continuing lead exposure.

An ounce of prevention

Policymakers are famously short-term in their thinking.  They focus on today’s crisis, the current economy, this year’s budget.  However, on issue after issue, we know that an investment today will yield significant rewards later.  This story has the potential to remind policymakers of this important lesson.

It’s the environment, stupid

Americans of whatever political stripe find it easy to put “environmental” topics near the bottom of their list of concerns. Even if Americans are generally sympathetic to environmental perspectives, they often think of them as being about plants and animals – somehow disconnected from human urgency.

While it is obvious to insiders and professionals that “the environment” relates to everything from our own health to food output levels to property damage and even loss of life from storms, this is simply not the default perspective of average people.

Advocates face an important challenge in helping the public focus on the infinite ways in which our own wellbeing depends on our physical surroundings including natural systems. What could illustrate this point more viscerally than the connection between the kind of gasoline we burn in our cars and our own odds of being mugged or murdered? Not to mention the fates of the kids whose own lives were derailed by lead exposure, and the significant costs to society related to imprisonment, special education, lost productivity, and so on.

Beyond Winning – Change the Culture

Q: When is a “win” not a win?

A: When it makes future wins harder.

Fighting the culture

When we at Topos are asked what distinguishes our approach from the various communications strategy and research groups around the country, the answer is simple: We focus on creating tools that change the culture.

On issue after issue, advocates for important causes must contend with cultural patterns that work against their goals. Despite these communicators’ passion, wisdom and hard work, progress is often frustratingly slow because broadly shared patterns of thought and understanding are preventing progress and engagement.

Consider the issue of “job quality” – which encompasses how workers are paid, whether they receive basic benefits, whether they are given reasonable schedules, et cetera. Our research experience tells us that regardless of the specific policy in question, there are several stubborn cultural patterns that get in the way of improving outcomes for workers. Most if not all Americans share default perspectives like the following:

If you don’t like your job you can always leave.

If you want a better job, work to improve yourself (through additional education, etc.).

There’s no such thing as a bad job – a job is what you make of it.

Regardless of party identification, education level or other individual differences, Americans recognize these perspectives, and typically default to them at one time or another during a conversation about jobs.

These perspectives reflect deep cultural narratives about work, jobs and business. As Americans, we value our “freedom” to move one from job to another, we value individual initiative and responsibility to “improve” ourselves, we value a strong work ethic, we respect people who create a successful business and we regard it as theirs to run as they see fit, and so forth. While we may also take other viewpoints at times, these ideas are so familiar and natural that they can seem like the whole truth – basic common sense that isn’t even questioned.

Most of us are blind to the notion that the job itself could be improved.

We share a cultural story that we each make our own way in the economic world, making the best of our circumstances, prospering the best we can given our abilities, character and luck. We navigate this terrain, we don’t shape it.

And the patterns of thinking we are up against on other issues are equally daunting – from default perspectives telling us that the family (as opposed to community or society) is all that really matters for a child’s development and outcomes, to the universally shared idea that we (including our governments) should “live within our means,” to ones that tell us that the gradual degradation of nature is the inevitable byproduct of “progress.”

Winning the battle, losing the war

Communicators often know or sense – whether through research, instinct or experience – that they are up against stubborn patterns like these. So what to do?

Unfortunately, one all-too-common approach is to work “with” current attitudes rather than against them. For instance, communicators are advised to “beat up on government” before advancing their own proposals. They are told that referring to government’s shortcomings or failures is a way to “connect” with the public, to show they “get it.”

But what happens when this advice is followed? One result is predictable: further reinforcement of the attitudes that stand in our way. So even a “win” ends up making future victories more difficult, and may in any case be reversed or undermined by the next vote. In this way communicators can end up winning a battle while losing the war – because they haven’t worked towards changing the culture, towards the kind of change that lasts.

To take another example, we have tested messages that take a “get tough” stance towards “illegal immigrants”, before bridging to policies that are actually about amnesty and legalization. (“Let’s make them all learn English and get drivers licenses.”) The result? Even if such messages trigger enthusiastic agreement and seem to promote the right policies, they actually (and predictably) end up reinforcing anti-immigrant attitudes. In fact, the part that listeners are most likely to hear, remember and respond to is the part about getting tough – the part that echoes and reinforces current cultural dynamics, that “meets people where they are”.

Wins achieved through messaging like this do not pave the way for other victories. They simply make the next battle just as tough or even tougher.

The Conservative Example

Since the beginnings of the modern conservative movement in the 1950s (William F. Buckley’s establishment of the National Review etc.), one of the movement’s strengths, and one of the important reasons for its impact, is that it has focused so much attention on asserting core ideas, as opposed to achieving individual victories by whatever means. In short, it has succeeded by not focusing on “what works” in a tactical sense.

Conservatives of that era, along with those who have followed in their footsteps, grasped that real success depended on changing the culture – not “working with it.”

Consider the following:

The American Enterprise Institute’s founding mission was to promote “greater public knowledge and understanding of the social and economic advantages accruing to the American people through the maintenance of the system of free, competitive enterprise.”

AEI.org/about/history

 

“There is a major cultural schism developing in America. … The new divide centers on free enterprise – the principle at the core of American culture.”

Arthur C. Brooks, “The Real Culture War Is Over Capitalism,”online.wsj.com, April 30, 2009

 

“Our political economy and our high-energy industry run on large, general principles, on ideas….”

From William F. Buckley’s mission statement for the National Review, 1955

 

These are not the thoughts of communicators eager for any immediate victory. Rather they are reflections of the fact that the larger struggles at stake will determine the meaning of all the smaller struggles along the way.

In effect, visionary conservatives have, for decades, played offense rather than defense. Instead of focusing on ways to achieve victories in spite of prevailing attitudes, they have looked for, and created, opportunities to make the broader case for smaller government, lower taxes, and so forth – understanding that by shifting the culture in their direction, they make all battles more winnable in the long haul.

Whether on the broadest questions that shape our society – such as the proper balance between individual and collective responsibility – or on more particular issues such as job quality, communicators can learn an important lesson from the conservative movement about the importance of taking the culture head-on.

Building/assessing the tools

How do communicators know whether they have the kinds of messages that help change the culture?

(Note: Good messages/ideas may not be sufficient to change culture – which can also require frequent repetition from compelling sources, changes in actual experience, and so forth. But they are necessary almost by definition.)

From our perspective, informed by social and cognitive science, a message must meet several critical criteria in order to have a chance of succeeding at this level:

Agreement/enthusiasm: Naturally, people who hear the idea – or at least, a lot of them – must find it persuasive and compelling.

Clarity: The idea must be easily and accurately understood.

Memorability: If an idea doesn’t stick with people, it has little chance of entering or changing the culture.

Repeatability: Likewise, if the idea isn’t one that average people can convey themselves, it has no chance of shaping the culture – since “the culture” is all about our shared ideas and assumptions, which we convey to each other in any number of ways.

The first of these points is a basic starting point for all message testing. It is a relatively easy task to find out whether people like or agree with a statement, find it more compelling than other statements, are excited or lukewarm about it. But agreement is insufficient. If the goal is culture change, the bar for success needs to be far higher.

What if people are agreeing with a statement while not understanding it as intended? Unfortunately, this is much more common than most communicators realize. Recall the “get tough” immigration messages that, despite communicators’ real intentions, are understood mainly as admonitions to get even tougher. We encounter the same dynamic across all issue areas: Audiences often give thumbs up to a message while not understanding or interpreting it the way insiders think they will.

And what if an idea sounds clear and compelling, but people can’t remember or talk about it five minutes after finishing a phone survey? Everyone can express the idea that we should live within our means, whether in these words or others. To become part of culture, an idea has to feel natural coming from regular people, not just experts or professional communicators.

Much of the art and science of developing a communications strategy depends on developing new tools to assess these properties of an idea or message. The evolving set of approaches used by Topos – from ethnographic field work to “Talkback” testing of individual messages, to “Virtual Community Forums” to longitudinal testing – reflects a commitment not to particular methods, but to getting at the potential of a message to help with the critical job of changing the culture, in large or small ways.

Lasting, not necessarily long-term

When people first think about the challenge of “changing the culture” they may assume that the timeline is measured in years, decades or even generations. And to be fair, it did take the visionary conservatives this amount of time to truly shift American culture in their direction.

But it is important to bear in mind that the same ideas that can ultimately change the culture can also engage people immediately to create to short-term victories. For instance, the idea that Americans have collectively built systems and structures that have helped create prosperity and quality of life can immediately launch a constructive, engaged and aspirational conversation that leads to greater support for smart tax approaches and public investments. This sticky and compelling idea can help in the short run, while also shifting the culture in a constructive direction over time, making many future conversations easier even before they happen.

A “new common sense”

Ultimately, our goal when working with communicators and advocates is to shift the culture so that a “new common sense” can take hold, or at least compete with ideas that are currently so familiar and accepted that they become the only reasonable way to see the world.

What if “living within our means” didn’t seem like the only reasonable way to think about public budgets, and smart investments in the foundations of our prosperity (including public systems) became a no-brainer?

What if reasonable people hardly questioned the idea that workers have the right to stick together at work to speak with a more formidable voice about their needs, rather than repeating the old saw that unions put companies at risk?

What if the idea that the economy prospers best when average workers have enough money to spend, and enough security to be comfortable spending it, were a commonplace notion, reflected in casual conversation and TV plots, rather than just in press releases?

Those are culture changes worth fighting for.

Topos Around the World

Topos is going global. Co-founder Joe Grady, an internationally recognized expert on metaphor, just returned from a lecture tour in Japan, including a presentation on metaphor and the public interest at Keio University, a lecture on scientific explanation at a food systems workshop at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, and an address on crosslinguistic (“primary”) metaphor patterns at Kobe University.

And on another continent, Senior Fellow Margy Waller was in Cape Town speaking at the international conference convened by the  Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) about reframing poverty policy and research.

Talking About Talking About Poverty

Writing in The Nation, reporter Greg Kaufmann updates readers on the national campaign to include discussion of poverty policy in the Presidential debates. He interviewed Topos Senior Fellow Margy Waller about reframing the public dialogue.

Waller said research suggests that the way we usually talk about poverty—even using the words “poverty” and “welfare” themselves—“makes most people think about people who don’t work, and bad personal choices, and irresponsibility. People’s beliefs are now so hardened in that stereotype, it’s very hard to overcome even with evidence that says otherwise.”

She believes Obama is on the right track by offering “a new narrative that wakes people up and enables them to listen.”

“He’s talking about how we create an economy that is good for everyone,” said Waller. “It opens the door to focusing on the role of government policy in addressing issues like wage stagnation, and maintaining a wage and benefit floor for good jobs. It points to how we are all better off when everyone is contributing to our economy and civic life, and we have jobs in our local communities that are family-supporting.”

Read the whole column here.

Team Topos Tweets the #Debates

Our real time reactions to the candidates’ framing and communicating of the issues. Read from the bottom to the top. Tweet your reactions to us @TeamTopos!

Debate Season: The Olympics of Framing

We’re excited about debate season! Yes, we’re political and policy communication nerds — and this is like the Olympics of framing.

Kennedy and Nixon Debate 1960

 

This year’s debates are sure to offer some great lessons in contrasting frames.  In fact, the winner of any debate is likely to be the candidate who more compellingly frames the fundamental issues.

 

For example, look at the competing visions of the American Experience that each candidate outlined in his convention speech:

Individual Freedom, Individual Success 

That very optimism is uniquely American.

 

It is what brought us to America. We are a nation of immigrants. We are the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the ones who wanted a better life, the driven ones, the ones who woke up at night hearing that voice telling them that life in that place called America could be better.

 

They came not just in pursuit of the riches of this world but for the richness of this life. Freedom. Freedom of religion. Freedom to speak their mind.

 

Freedom to build a life. And yes, freedom to build a business. With their own hands.

 

This is the essence of the American experience.  

Mitt Romney    

 

Shared Responsibility, Shared Success 

But we also believe in something called citizenship, a word at the very heart of our founding, at the very essence of our democracy; the idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another, and to future generations.

 

We believe that when a CEO pays his autoworkers enough to buy the cars that they build, the whole company does better.

 

We believe that when a family can no longer be tricked into signing a mortgage they can’t afford, that family is protected, but so is the value of other people’s homes, and so is the entire economy…

 

As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government. That’s what we believe.

Barack Obama

 

The debate frame clashes are likely to be even more obvious since the candidates will be seeking to highlight contrasts.

During the October 3rd debate we’ll be watching for framing moments — watch this space for some thoughts about the most interesting ones. (Want to share your thoughts? We’ll be on Twitter and Facebook for the debate!)
Twitter Buttons
 

Responding to the “Job Killer” Allegation

Everyone knows the simple rule about repetition being key to changing public understanding. Here’s a new finding about the framing of government policy that researchers and advocates need to consider: The  number of news stories using the phrase  “job killer” about a policy idea increased significantly between 1984 and 2011.

A new study, “Job Killers” in the News: Allegations without Verification, by Professors Peter Dreier of Occidental College and Christopher R. Martin of the University of Northern Iowa, revealed that  “job killer” allegations were targeted at policies to safeguard consumers, protect the environment, raise wages, expand health insurance coverage, increase taxes on the wealthy, and make workplaces safer.

Most troubling is the study’s finding that in 92% of the stories alleging that a government policy was a “job killer,” the news media failed to cite any evidence for this claim.

“It would be fair to say this tax increase on job creators [proposed by the Obama Administration in order to pay for the Jobs Bill] is the kind of proposal both parties have opposed in the past,” said Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner. …

The oil and gas industry, housing industry, and charitable services sector are among those lining up to argue that these tax increases will endanger hundreds of thousands of jobs. They would result in the slashing of 200,000 jobs in the oil and gas industry said John Felmy, chief economist at the American Petroleum Institute. “It will be a terrible hit to an industry this country needs dearly to drive up revenue, jobs and energy security.”

Republicans Warn Obama Tax Hikes Will Kill Jobs” By Michelle Hirsch, The Fiscal Times, September 13, 2011

Communicators who support any proposals to increase public revenue, by whatever means, are likely to come up against the opposition argument that the measures in question will “kill jobs.”

But while this argument is applied to virtually any tax proposal, it may be advanced most vigorously when it comes to taxes on businesses, or even a reduction in subsidies to businesses, which are bemoaned as job-killing “tax increases.” (E.g. see oil industry responses like the one cited above.)

In the face of this argument, how can communicators successfully promote increased business taxes as a reasonable and important component of our nation’s revenue strategy? Topos’ recent memo on the “Tax Shift” frame (“How the ‘Tax Shift’ Idea Can Promote Greater Revenue and More Progressive Taxation,” by the Topos Partnership for the Ford Foundation, October 2011) explains that a wide range of Americans can be engaged by a narrative that clarifies how corporations and the wealthy have successfully evaded tax-paying responsibilities over the past several decades, shifting tax responsibility to the rest of us. This strategy is broadly effective for promoting a return to a more reasonable distribution of the load we must collectively carry, for our own wellbeing. But what are communicators’ best responses to the direct and seemingly sensible argument that when companies pay more in taxes, they are able to employ fewer people?

This short memo begins with a review of some of the key “common sense” perceptions communicators are up against followed by recommended, tested responses to both defend against the Job Killer attack and promote a new perspective that inoculates against its effectiveness.

(The research effort took place in April through June of 2011 and included a set of in-depth, one-on-one telephone interviews (“cognitive elicitations”); focus groups in Richmond, VA and Minneapolis, MN; and “talkback” testing in which individuals hear a single brief message and are then asked a series of questions assessing their ability to remember, explain and reason in terms of a key idea, as well as its effects on their thinking about the topic.)

Up Against Current “Common Sense”

The good news about the “job killer” argument is that people are unlikely to bring up this point on their own, when presented with the general idea of tax increases, for instance. Even though industry spokespeople and their government allies make this point often and forcefully, it is not a top of mind point for average Americans. They are much more sensitive to the effects of taxes on individual and family budgets.

On the other hand, communicators trying to promote increased (direct or indirect) taxes on businesses are up against a set of related perceptions that feel like “common sense,” including the following:

Taking tax money out of private hands slows spending and therefore the economy

This idea was repeated often in all phases of the research. Taxes result in less money to spend. In particular, individuals spend less on things like restaurants, clothes, travel, etc. In short, taxes are an expense, not a source of benefits.

Okay, you’ve taxed and built a road and a school, but now this guy that makes 50 a year doesn’t have it to buy a newer car . . . There’s only so much money being made, so every dollar is taken out of somebody’s pocket is not being spent somewhere else.

52-year old moderate man, Alabama

A minority of research participants also noted that businesses that are taxed more heavily may spend less on hiring and purchasing.

We can put more money in our pockets and spend it how we want, and start the economy again by allowing businesses to hire more because they have more.

27-year old conservative Republican, Illinois

Businesses create jobs, with little or no involvement of government.

A widespread default view of the economy holds that healthy businesses produce jobs. Government spending, on the other hand, results in government jobs (especially bureaucrats and politicians) as well as handouts for the poor and unemployed. Leaving as much money as possible in the hands of businesses therefore makes sense as a way of promoting job growth.

If you want a business to hire some folks, don’t cause their bottom line to go up because if it goes up, they are going to be cutting costs as opposed to adding more employees.

Richmond Man

The wealthy create jobs because they use their money to invest in businesses.

While people may dismiss the phrase “trickle down economy” as a flawed philosophy, their thinking continues to be shaped by the idea that wealthy people create jobs by investing in business. “Job Creators” is another way of reinforcing a trickle-down approach.

The top wage earners and top people in the country that are making the most money will spend more money in the economy. I believe they will reinvest, that they will buy and invest in companies that will employ people and that will build our tax base and therefore that will provide more federal and state income tax. They do give back to the economy.

Minneapolis Man

Taxing businesses higher motivates them to leave (the state, the country).

For many people, this is a familiar and convincing downside to taxes. Because people think about taxes as an expense rather than a source of benefits, it makes perfect sense that businesses will try to reduce their costs by keeping taxes to a minimum, even relocating their operations.

Importantly, this is a concern for people whether they are receptive or hostile toward taxes in general.

We need to keep corporations here for jobs that we really need but we do not want to raise their taxes too high that they will prefer to go to another country.

40-year old liberal woman, Massachusetts

The bottom line is that while Americans tend not to think spontaneously about the “job killing” effects of business taxes, or taxes in general, the idea is a good enough fit with the rest of their “common sense” perspectives that it risks becoming a default perspective.

Defense: Defeating the “Job Killer” argument

Fortunately, the research shows that it is possible to defeat the “job killer” idea with different explanations that fit just as well with common sense.

More specifically, people respond very well to explanations that point out why taxes don’t in fact have much to do with companies’ hiring decisions. The research identified three different points that are effective.

Hiring is driven by consumer demand.

Companies hire when demand dictates that they need to produce more products or provide more service. People are quite willing to disconnect taxes from hiring decisions once they see things from the company’s point of view in this way.

Sample language:

Businesses hire employees for only one reason – because there is consumer demand for their goods and services. They hire when they think an extra employee can help them make more money. According to many business owners, the percentage of taxes paid is an insignificant factor, so the idea that taxes lead to fewer jobs just isn’t true.

Cutting their taxes doesn’t save them any more money to create more jobs . . . [As] business owners said about job creation: it all boils down to increased demand for their products.

48-year old moderate woman, North Carolina

 

Tax hikes don’t affect our unemployment rate . . . Taxes don’t affect how a business does. Demand for the product and willingness of consumers to shop does.

27-year old moderate woman, Kentucky

 

Taxes and employment costs are costs of doing business. Despite what the taxes on business may be, so long as there is a demand for a product, then business will go and provide that product. It’s a false argument to claim that to increase taxes would be bad to business.

45-year old conservative man, New York

Hiring practices are driven by the search for profits

People are very willing to accept the common-sense idea that companies hire when hiring will help them increase overall profit and “grow the pie.”

Sample language:

Talk to actual businesspeople and you’ll find that tax rates don’t go into their hiring decisions. Why? Because businesses hire workers to grow the “profit pie.” The fact that they have to give away a slice of the profit pie (as taxes) doesn’t change that logic. Businesses still want to grow overall profits – and will hire workers if they need to.

Higher taxes on companies don’t mean fewer jobs. Businesses hire in order to make more money.

72-year old moderate woman, California

 

Businesses who want to expand will do so regardless of higher taxes. Expanding their “pie” will mean paying more in taxes, but most likely not a higher percentage.

21-year old conservative woman, Wisconsin

 

Companies still want to make money and will still hire people to make that money regardless of the taxes.

41-year old moderate woman, Wisconsin

Historically, high taxes haven’t killed jobs.

Not only are people willing to accept this point, but they often go further and add that, conversely, low taxes have historically failed to create jobs. (“Been there, done that.”)

Sample language

Companies are crying wolf when they complain that higher taxes will cost jobs. The fact is that corporate taxes, as a percentage of the economy, are only about a quarter of what they were in prosperous times a generation or two ago. In the fifties and sixties, companies didn’t have so many ways of avoiding taxes, and they were still able to employ enough people to keep a booming economy going.

Raising taxes is not always a bad thing. In the 60s this was not a problem and businesses were still booming. This tax money would be used to do important things.

36-year old conservative man, New Jersey

 

They say that jobs will decrease but it’s not true. They would still flourish as they did years ago, before tax cuts became so abused.

40-year old conservative woman, Texas

 

Massive tax savings accrued by businesses has not generated job growth.

31-year old independent woman, Illinois

 

Offense: Pivoting to the Tax Shift frame

Rebutting the “job killer” argument is an important part of making the case for higher corporate taxes, but communicators also need to change the terms of the debate by helping people understand that tax responsibilities have shifted in the wrong direction.

Our research confirms that the following is an effective “organizing idea” for creating more constructive conversations about collecting revenue:

The Tax Shift From Corporations and the Wealthy to the Rest of Us

In recent decades, corporations and the wealthy have paid a smaller and smaller proportion for the things we need, and taxes have shifted to average Americans and small businesses.

This is an idea that is currently missing in public discourse, that sticks with people, that they find compelling, that helps people reason about other points, and that inclines people, including many conservatives, to believe that we actually need to get more revenue. The following brief text illustrates one way to express the point in a coherent and compelling narrative:

One of the most dramatic changes in the US economy in the last 40 years has been what’s called the Great Tax Shift. For instance, thanks to decades of lobbying for cuts and loopholes, large corporations today pay half of what they used to in taxes. Since we still need to pay for the things that our prosperity rests on, like education, infrastructure, etc., the Tax Shift really means that more taxes have been shifted onto regular people or small businesses, or else we have created deficits. Shifting Taxes back to where they were before, when profitable corporations and the super rich paid their share, would mean we can start paying for our needs again, rather than borrowing to pay for them. 

(For more on the Tax Shift frame see “How the ‘Tax Shift’ Idea Can Promote Greater Revenue and More Progressive Taxation,” by the Topos Partnership for the Ford Foundation, October 2011.)

Depending on the audience and the speaker, advocates can connect the Job Killer frame to the Tax Shift frame in one of several ways, along a continuum of rhetorical aggressiveness. At the “soft” end, communicators can treat the Shift point as simply more solid and factual than the Job Killer “theory” – e.g.:

The theory that taxes kill jobs is pretty debatable. Here are X reasons why most economists don’t buy it… While we might not agree about how valid that theory is, what we can agree on is the fact that there’s been a huge shift in who pays our taxes, from big corporations to ordinary people. Let me give you some numbers: …

Somewhat more aggressively, communicators might suggest that the “job killer” argument is a deliberate ploy to help accomplish the tax shift away from corporations – e.g.:

The idea that taxes kill jobs is just propaganda that no serious economist or even corporate CEO believes. The agenda behind the mantra is to keep shifting responsibility for actually paying taxes from Big Corporations onto regular people.

Big corporations need roads, electricity, an educated workforce, healthcare, government-funded science research, and a strong military as much as anyone. They just want you to pay for it.

Conclusion

Advocates regularly cite the “job killer” frame as an obstacle to progress on revenue and other policies. They are rightfully concerned that the threat of eliminating jobs, once uttered, can derail constructive conversation with the public or even with leaders, who are particularly concerned about appearing not to prioritize employment and economic prosperity in these tough economic times.

The research conducted for this project demonstrates that average Americans are receptive to common sense arguments about why policies, including taxes on businesses, are not in fact job killers. If advocates approach their work with the understanding that they must fight common sense with better common sense, they can make a confident case in favor of new tax and other policies that are critically needed.

Topos on Framing

Topos’ unique and innovative approach synthesizes expertise from the cognitive and social sciences as well as public opinion. Most of the insights and examples in this post emerged from the research Topos principals have conducted for a wide range of organizations over the past 10 or more years.

Introduction

Framing is a term that has become popular in political circles over the past ten years, but it is used in such different ways that it risks losing all meaning and becoming just a trendy word for communications.

We hope that this post will be a useful resource to help advocates, funders, and consumers of framing research understand the gist of framing, and why it can make the difference between effective and ineffective communications.

Frankly, many organizations are currently playing catch-up – talking about framing while continuing to operate mainly within the traditional and limited frames that they have long defaulted to – or, worse yet, the frames opponents define.

Obviously this is not due to a lack of desire to communicate effectively. Instead, we believe that it is largely due to lack of framing expertise and capacity across the community.

Constellations

Frames organize information. Consider a familiar constellation, like the Big Dipper. Cultures throughout human history have seen patterns like this one in the sky.

Constellations are simple, familiar pictures that impose sense and meaning on the random scatter of stars above us. Without them, our eyes would still register all of the bright dots that make them up, but a random scatter of points is utterly different from a simple, coherent, “user friendly” chunk that we can remember, point to and talk about. In short, constellations are organizing ideas that allow us to see and remember things we otherwise couldn’t.

The same process plays out as people think about any topic; thinking and perception are guided by simple organizing ideas. When they are thinking about gun control, for instance, people’s perception may be guided by a simple organizing idea like Freedom: People should be free to make their own choices.

Importantly, there can be alternative ideas that organize the same information differently and give it a different meaning. The Big Dipper, for instance, is also known as the Plough (in England), and makes up just one part of the Great Bear (Ursa Major) known to classical civilizations. Likewise, there are always choices when it comes to framing public interest issues. Rather than freedom, for instance, gun control can be thought about in terms of self-protection, or tragic accidents that kill kids. Obviously, different organizing ideas can have very different implications – a point we will return to below.

Note that many messaging discussions end up focusing on variants of a single theme, rather than really exploring new organizing ideas. For example, the message “people who work hard should make a fair wage” may be more or less effective than the message “working people deserve an income that supports a family” but both use the same organizing lens of one group and their needs, rather than, for example, exploring a big picture perspective on how the overall economy benefits when working people have higher incomes.

Without a clear organizing idea, people confronted with “information” about an issue can sometimes feel like they’re looking at a random scatter rather than a meaningful picture – for instance when they hear lots of facts and figures about a topic that they basically don’t understand. This lack of a clear picture either leaves people confused and disengaged, or allows them to default to an unintended organizing idea that backfires on communicators.

Organizing Ideas & Public Interest Issues

Let’s consider some concrete examples of how organizing ideas figure in our thinking about public interest issues – and in particular, how shifting to a different organizing idea can lead to very different thinking.

Watersheds

Topos research in New England found that most people don’t know what a watershed is, so there is a real risk of the “random scatter” problem when advocates communicate. On the other hand, there is also a strong default idea that often rushes in to fill the vacuum.

Strong default organizing idea: The WATER itself – thinking tends to focus on everything that directly affects a body of water, such as garbage or sewage dumped right into the river. Consequently, the policy conversation ends up narrowly focusing on water pollution.

More constructive organizing idea: Watersheds are like a BASIN, with water (and other material) flowing from everywhere in the region to the bodies of water at the “bottom.” When people shift to this perspective they see that all land is part of a watershed and everything that happens on land has widespread consequences. With this idea shaping their thinking, people immediately recognize the relevance of zoning, agricultural policy and so on.

Arts

Even a seemingly non-contentious issue like the arts can be undermined by problematic organizing ideas.

Strong default organizing idea: Arts as entertainment – people may have strong and positive feelings about the arts, while seeing them through the lens of personal entertainment. In this view, entertainment is a “luxury,” and the “market” will determine which arts offerings survive, based on people’s tastes as consumers of entertainment. Consequently, public support for the arts makes little sense, particularly when public funds are scarce.

More constructive organizing idea: The arts create ripple effects of benefits, such as vibrant, thriving neighborhoods where we all want to live and work. This is not only compelling, but it also sets an expectation for public responsibility for the arts.

Nuclear Weapons

A number of leading experts and public officials of both political parties advocate for a nuclear-free world. However, the public is largely unconvinced so far.

Strong default organizing idea: Nukes keep us safe – Nuclear weapons are often viewed as simply our most destructive weapon, therefore our biggest and best tool for self-protection, essentially a shield. In this frame, disarmament sounds like we are voluntarily giving up our security, or (“cutting off our arm” as the cartoon at right suggests) and advocates sound naïvely idealistic at best.

More constructive organizing idea: Nukes create risk in today’s world, rather than reduce it – Nuclear weapons are a liability, because they don’t help with current risks. You can’t nuke terrorists, but terrorists could get their hands on nukes. And the sheer volume means there is a lot of opportunity for accident or theft, leading to destruction that affects us all. In this view, nukes (including our own) are like a ticking bomb in the basement.

In all these cases, shifting to a new organizing idea means arriving at new conclusions about important questions such as:

  • Who are the relevant players?
  • What’s at stake?
  • What solutions make sense?

Leading vs. Following

Unfortunately, effective communication often isn’t as simple as helping people shift to a different, familiar perspective. It can be very hard work developing and promoting what is essentially a new organizing idea – and it often means moving outside an organization’s comfort zone.

In an important sense, much advocacy is currently defensive – working within Americans’ existing, default understandings. For instance, advocates may feel obligated to sound “tough” on security or immigration – even if these stances don’t fit the policies they promote – or to avoid discussing unpopular or complicated positions (such as nuclear disarmament or carbon limits). And strategists often reinforce this instinct by viewing public opinion as a constraint on discourse – politicians either “can” or “can’t” take certain positions based on the popular views measured in surveys, for instance.

But real change often isn’t possible unless advocates make an effective case for a position that is currently unpopular or poorly understood. While daunting, it is critical to go on the offense and work to fundamentally reshape how people think about an issue. An effective organizing idea should not only “win” in the short-term, but also set the right dynamic in motion for long-term policy.

For example, a focus on the physical and organizational “public structures” that underlie American prosperity creates the foundation for a new kind of conversation. It helps people recognize the value and importance of the public sector, and helps them transcend knee-jerk dismissal of government.

Of course, identifying organizing ideas with this potential is usually not easy. But developing them can make the difference between creating the space for real change, and simply making the best of what we perceive as unfortunate limits on progress.

“New Common Sense”

To be truly effective, an organizing idea must strike people as common sense when they hear it.

In nearly every issue area, advocates are likely to be competing with ways of thinking about the topic that work against their goals, yet feel like common sense to many:

  • The government is inefficient, beset by bickering, made up of self-interested politicians, etc.
  • Poor people are largely responsible for their own fate – didn’t the rest of us work hard to earn what we’ve got?
  • Regulations make it harder for businesses to prosper.
  • Etc.

To compete in a terrain populated with strong and stubborn “common sense” ideas like these, a new organizing idea must have the qualities that make it also sound like common sense: It must be clear and concrete, easy to remember and talk about, and must reflect how the world really works (as opposed to wishful thinking or ideological proselytizing).

It must also strike people as a new take on a familiar topic. In most issue areas, people feel they have heard the same old ideas a million times – but a new insight has a chance of standing out, sticking around, and reshaping thought and discourse.

What About Values and Emotion?

People often assume that framing is about “highlighting values.” While connecting to relevant values is important, it is usually insufficient by itself. It is just as important for people to understand how an issue and a value are connected.

Consider different approaches to taxation. Critics of a particular tax that disproportionately affects poor and working class people – such as a grocery tax – are naturally inclined to argue that this kind of tax is “unfair.” The trouble is that the word “fair” is interpreted in wildly different ways and can be used to support almost any approach to taxes – is it “fair” for 5% of the population to pay 50% of the taxes? Isn’t a flat tax the “fairest” approach of all?

Rather than simply demanding a “fair” approach to taxes, advocates of a particular approach must help audiences understand how the approach they oppose can be seen as unfair. For example, our work in Alabama suggests the following core idea is effective at helping people rethink the state’s approach to taxes: “Alabama struggles to get things done due to its Upside Down tax system, in which average families pay 10% of their income in taxes, while the wealthiest families pay less than 5%.” The organizing idea of an “upside down system” effectively turns the “common sense” view that the wealthy pay more taxes on its head.

Similarly, appeals to emotion often have a limited effect, or can even backfire, if people are looking at the issue through a lens (organizing idea) that obscures important parts of the story, or that leads to an unintended interpretation (blame the victim, etc.).

Everything Counts

Once we have identified the organizing idea that gives us the best chance of moving conversation in a constructive direction, how do we promote it?

The key is to repeat the organizing idea often and in a variety of ways. It should guide choices about all elements of a communication, such as:

  • The points we do and do not include (Some arguments might be valid, but work against the chosen frame.)
  • The messengers we use (Messengers can evoke, or clash with, frames – e.g. a farmer taking about watersheds can help evoke the idea that all land use decisions ultimately have consequences that flow to bodies of water.)
  • Images (Obviously, images can be helpful tools for promoting an organizing idea – an arts organization might show photos of vibrant neighborhoods rather than virtuoso performers, for instance.)
  • Supporting facts and examples – some of which will work for and others against a particular organizing idea.

Conclusion: A Tough but Critical Effort

It’s never easy to change common sense. By definition it has been established through repetition, the media, and so forth over time. In addition, we as humans tend to seek confirmation of what we already know, which means that “new” information tends to be re/misinterpreted as confirmation of what we already believe.

Learning and following general framing principles (sticking to a coherent frame, using social math, offering explanations, etc.) will go a long way toward improving organizations’ communications. However, it is also critical to investigate the issue-specific dynamics that build or undermine support in a particular issue area. Since we all carry frames around with us, it can be particularly challenging to see our own issues in new ways. In the end, there is often no substitute for framing research that employs a variety of cognitive methods to uncover the effects of frames on thinking over time, and to develop the new frames that will create a lasting foundation of support for solutions, helping us get beyond the “plateaus” of awareness and support where too many issues have lingered for decades.

Values vs. Explanations in Advocacy

Issues & Values

Progressive advocates increasingly accept what Conservatives have long recognized – that issue advocacy is often a competition between opposing value systems. Following on Thomas Kuhn’s groundbreaking work on paradigms, George Lakoff’s influential Moral Politics, for example, argued forcefully that conservatives and progressives inhabit radically different but equally coherent moral worlds, and that their views on any given issue emerge from deeply held values and about who we are and how the world should be. In other words, it’s not as simple as saying that “we’ve got the facts on our side and they don’t.”

Take almost any contentious issue: Abortion rights, the death penalty, gay marriage, immigration, environmental protections, taxes, gun control, charter schools, nuclear disarmament, health insurance, government regulations. People’s stands on these issues are related to a sense of moral identity, and are not matters of objective truth. As it happens, many of the disagreements on particular issues come down to a basic moral distinction: whether we think of ourselves as fundamentally about collective responsibility or self-reliance – what Jared Bernstein has dubbed the WITT (“we’re in this together”) and YOYO (“you’re on your own”) positions.

It is clear that when issues are rooted in deeply held values, change and progress is difficult to achieve. A belief about the importance of personal responsibility is much harder to change than an opinion about whether one car gets better mileage than another car. In general terms, disagreements about “who we are” or “right and wrong” are trickier than disagreements about “how things work.” In philosophical terms, we are dealing with the very difficult problem of moral relativism, according to which there is not necessarily an objectively right or wrong stand.

Issues & Explanations

The work of the Topos principals over the last 10 years suggests that the current emphasis on valuesbased advocacy is actually an overcorrection away from the traditional reliance on facts as persuasive tools. Recognizing that facts actually are not enough, current communications often overemphasize appeals to moral identity and values, relying too much on reminding the audience that “we” (Americans, Chicagoans, etc.) are the kind of people who: respect individual rights, care about our neighbors, love our country,” and so forth. In identity-based communications, you need to know your audience – how they talk, who they listen to, and so forth – in order to appeal effectively to their sense of who they are.

And given that most of us are a mix of all of these values, artfully connecting issues to identity becomes the name of the communications game.

What has been deemphasized is the kind of communications that is not based on our sense of who we are – namely, explanation-based advocacy.

Explanation-based advocacy worries less about values and more about how the world works. (Note that effective explanations are very different from bare facts.) The fundamental assumption of this approach is that as people come to understand how an issue works – how cause and effect play out – they tend to converge on generally sensible policy choices, regardless of politics (or identity). Much research by the Topos principals over the last decade on a variety of issue areas has repeatedly demonstrated the effectiveness of this approach.

Consider the following issue areas, where progress has come along with increased understanding:

Ozone hole

While the problem is not yet solved, very substantial steps have been taken to address it. Not coincidentally, a high proportion of Americans know that aerosols and CFCs have a destructive effect on the ozone layer, and that the resulting “hole” allows sunlight to penetrate the atmosphere in harmful ways. The very concrete language (and images) of the ozone hole – which seems like a hole in our metaphorical “roof” – have certainly been factors in helping American society grasp and take responsibility for the problem.

Mental health

There is still a great deal of progress to be made in educating Americans about mental health, but there has also been an undeniable change for the better on the levels of both attitudes and policy. Behind this change is the growing understanding that brain chemistry and anatomy as well as developmental experience contribute to behaviors that used to seem simply “crazy” or “bad.” Various nonprofits have helped promote messages about “brain disorders” for instance. Even if only understood in a simplistic way, these biological explanations for behavior have had the virtue of concreteness, and have opened the door to entirely new ways of understanding familiar problems.

Tobacco

The history of the tobacco issue is very complex – and has included important moral dimensions – but explanation is certainly one of the factors that has led to more restrictions on the use of tobacco products. For instance, people now recognize, as they did not a generation ago, that cigarette smoke contains chemicals that are physically addictive, and that second-hand smoke has health consequences for nonsmokers.

In each of these cases, the public has been offered a concrete explanation involving cause and effect, and the result has been that parts of people’s minds that would otherwise not have been engaged – the descriptive, practical, “how the world works” parts – have helped them view the problem in new ways.

Part of the appeal of explanations-based communications is that it offers the possibility of fundamental and even irreversible change in how people think about an issue. Once people understand the basic idea of second-hand smoke, it is hard for them to unlearn that idea, no matter what kind of values-based appeals are made. The issue moves forward. Contrast that with the perpetual oscillation between communitarian and individual values that America is famous for – each Great Society program eventually provokes a backlash insistence on individual responsibility, and vice versa.

The practical implication of this perspective on communications is that advocates should be on the lookout for areas where the public fails to understand the mechanics of an issue, and not only its moral/ political underpinnings.

Interestingly, even the fundamental opposition between WITT and YOYO perspectives, often seen as a matter of (moral) identity, is actually also a question of objective understanding of how the world works. In other words, it’s fair to ask – and to communicate about – which view is a more accurate description of how the world actually works. This is particularly important when these views serve as guides to our actions, as they do on any issue where laws and public policies come into play.

Consider just a few cases:

  • Flu epidemics (How can we ensure there are adequate supplies of vaccine, or that the right vaccine exists at all?)
  • Pollution (How can we ensure that industries control toxic waste, or even that we know what the toxins are and how they should be handled?)
  • Unemployment/underemployment (In periods of massive layoffs and downsizing, what are the most effective steps to bring back thousands of jobs?)
  • Monopolies (How can we be sure that a single company, or alliance of companies, doesn’t gain control of an important type of product, and overcharge for it or reduce its quality?)

Could anyone argue seriously that individual effort can deal with these issues, that the YOYO approach can solve the problem?

Despite much of the rhetoric, the current mortgage and credit crisis is another problem that can only be solved by a WITT approach. In fact the problem itself begins with the deregulation of the lending industry – an example of YOYO-ism at work. Rather than taking the WITT perspective that the mortgage and credit systems are an important pillar of overall prosperity, and that all Americans have a collective interest in preserving the strength and integrity of the system, the deregulators chose an approach that said to borrowers, You’re on your own when it comes to choosing reasonable mortgages, and to lenders, You’re on your own when it comes to managing your risks and warning lenders (or not) about the chances they’re taking.

As a matter of morality, there’s room to argue about lenders’ responsibility to borrowers, and about whether they should be in the business of “protecting us from ourselves.” (There certainly are, or used to be, American bankers who would not think it right to make loans that many borrowers don’t really understand and are likely to default on.) From the perspective of the country’s practical interests, though, there’s really no question which of the YOYO or WITT perspectives offers the clearer picture. The lending practices that became popular following deregulation have led to a significant recession. Markets and industries are so deeply and multiply interconnected that we truly are all in it together, whether it suits our moral leanings or not.

And by the way, while deregulation has recently been largely a Republican project, no-one should believe that the YOYO – WITT divide is inherently a partisan one. Republicans have taken a WITT perspective on a wide variety of issues, from California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposals for universal health care (on both moral and practical grounds) to traditional Republican support for sacrifice and service in defense of the country, to the environmental efforts of Republican presidents from Teddy Roosevelt to Nixon and various Republicans currently or recently in Congress (particularly in the New England delegations). Even if hyper-individualism is a hallmark of a certain popular type of contemporary conservatism, the WITT perspective is too fundamentally true to be the property of one party or the other.

If the YOYO vs. WITT clash plays out in important moral debates, it may be even more significant as a conceptual clash. These fundamentally different stances guide our perception of the world and how it works. They help us see certain things and obscure others. One reveals that our neighbor’s mortgage problems affect us, the other blinds us to that fact.

Strategies for Debt Ceiling Talk and a Deficit of Understanding

From House Speaker Boehner’s warnings about the next debt ceiling debate to Mitt Romney’s addition of a debt clock prop to his campaign events, conservatives have signaled that they intend to make the federal deficit and government spending the focus of their economic message.

In this short strategy memo, Topos offers advice for how progressives can blunt this attack, and help Americans understand why government spending is necessary to economic recovery.

Trayvon Martin’s Death and the Media Dialogue

The tragic death of Trayvon Martin is sparking a much-needed dialogue about racism and the plight of black men, and commentators are turning to recent reports by the Topos Partnership for the Opportunity Agenda to help make the point.  In the Huffington Post, Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal notes this new research finds “correlations between media depictions of Black males and lowered life chances”:

Specifically the reports suggest causal links between media portrayals of Black males and public attitudes directed towards them, including “general antagonisms,” “exaggerated views related to criminality and violence,” “lack of identification with or sympathy for black males,” and “public support for punitive approaches to problems” related to Black males — all dynamics that have played out in the corporate media coverage of Trayvon Martin’s murder.

We hope that more awareness of this continuing, troubling dynamic will lead to culture change.

World’s First Game-Sourced Film Brings Topos Research to the Screen

This might be the coolest thing ever.

Here’s the press release about this new film. When you watch, be sure to stay after the credits for the “behind-the-scenes” short video at the end.

World’s First Game-Sourced Film Premieres

Radius: A Short Film Utilizes Material Gathered Via SCVNGR Smartphone App

Film Developed by Possible Worldwide in Partnership with RippleFX Films

CINCINNATI (February 28, 2012)– The world’s first game-sourced movie, Radius: A Short Film, recently had it’s world premiere at a red carpet event. Created by Possible Worldwide, a WPP Digital company, with multiple community partners, the film was shot in and around Cincinnati during MidPoint Music Festival and other arts events. Edited from more than 2,000 unique pieces of crowd-sourced photos, Radius tells the story of a man’s investigation into a mysterious superhero who sweeps into his local community and the startling revelation behind this hero’s rapid rise.

The filmmakers gathered the raw material for Radius using the SCVNGR smartphone app beginning in September 2011 at the MidPoint Music Festival. They placed life-sized superheroes on top of iconic Cincinnati buildings such as the Contemporary Arts Center and Know Theater to attract attention, and movie posters encouraged people to play the SCVNGR game by scanning the displayed QR codes. More than 300 people played the game and submitted their own photos via the SCVNGR app. They received free music downloads from the bands performing at MidPoint, as well as the opportunity to be featured in the film. Additional content was gathered during Cincinnati’s Final Friday event and at the Emery Theatre’s 11.11.11 opening event.

“The most exciting aspect of the Radius experience is how we actually used all this game-sourced content in the movie,” said Hank McLendon, chief creative officer at Possible Worldwide. “Photos of local businesses and venues became a three-dimensional ‘Gotham’ for our superhero story, and portraits of the audience became characters in our film. We even gave people the opportunity to remix songs from music festival bands to help create our film score. Then we combined it all into a unique, visually engaging take on the standard comic book format.”

When the participating audience returns to watch this film short online, at film festivals or in local theaters, they’ll find the content they had captured incorporated into every aspect of the story. But they’ll also find the true identity of the film’s superhero: It’s them. Because they had supported the arts, they had triggered a ripple effect of benefits throughout the community – benefits they had unknowingly captured with their photos.

The filmmakers were inspired by the Topos Partnership’s ground-breaking work in, The Arts Ripple Effect: A Research-Based Strategy to Build Shared Responsibility for the Arts. Completed in 2008, the year-long research initiative examined the effectiveness of traditional arguments for supporting the arts, and revealed powerful insights into what people value about the arts. The key insight that a thriving arts scene creates a ripple effect of benefits throughout the community such as safer streets, booming businesses, and a vibrant atmosphere became the foundation of an expanded mission for ArtsWave, a Cincinnati-based arts advocacy and funding organization, and the narrative theme of Radius.

“We wanted to know how to change the conversation about the arts in an innovative way,” said Margy Waller, a senior fellow at Topos and project manager for the ArtsWave research initiative. “The creative team at Possible took the idea of the arts ripple effect and brought it to life in a vivid and compelling story that invites people to discover their own power to change their community by supporting and participating in the arts.”

“At Possible Worldwide we believe in the power of participation. We saw this not only as an opportunity to participate in our community but to create a first-of-its-kind movie experience.” said Jodi Schmidtgoesling, president of eastern U.S. at Possible Worldwide. “We involved the audience in the idea so they could help shape it, which ultimately leads to better understanding, personal ownership and the desire to share with others.”

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About Possible Worldwide
Possible Worldwide is a global agency that creates meaningful and measurable interactive marketing. The firm serves a broad range of Fortune 1000 clients, including AT&T, Barclay’s, Comcast, Dell, P&G, Nokia, Microsoft, Mazda and Starwood.

Headquartered in New York, Possible operates 18 offices worldwide, with major operations in London, Shanghai, Delhi, Singapore, São Paulo, Dubai, Los Angeles, Cincinnati and Nairobi. For more information, please visit possibleworldwide.com. Possible Worldwide is part of WPP Digital, which is the digital investment arm of WPP.

The Arts Ripple Effect

The arts thrive best with broad public support, but for that to happen people have to see the arts as a public good – as more than just individual expressions and performances to be consumed. The problem is that earlier narratives, which placed special value on art as a mark of civilization and cultural development have fallen away, and so people wonder why their tax dollars are being spent on it.

When advocates draw people’s attention to the way in which the effects of the arts ripple throughout a community – making places more vibrant, more attractive, and more economically and socially vigorous – average people can see why the arts are an important common good and a shared responsibility. A new narrative takes the place of the old, and a new generation can be brought in.

These Topos findings are being widely shared among advocates for the arts in communities around the country.

Read all about it right here: