The world isn’t standing still – and neither can we. New narratives are emerging, public attitudes are shifting and the challenges facing our communities are more complex than ever. This means thinking carefully not just about what we say, but how we say it.
As all good communicators know, understanding your audience is ‘comms 101’. But often the focus of this is on demographics – age and gender or their educational attainment and income levels. Here at Agenda, we also like to go deeper. We pay attention to the values, beliefs and identities that shape how people make sense of the world. We look at the moral frameworks that people live by and the emotional and psychological cues that influence what they believe and how they act. This approach helps us frame messages in ways that inspire action as well as inform.
We have seen this play out in lots of different ways. A few years ago, we were commissioned to explore the role that business could and should play in reducing poverty in the UK. When we spoke to businesses about this, we kept getting the same response – “it’s not our job, that’s for charities and government to deal with”.
Rather than push harder on our original message, we took a step back. We decided to reframe the conversation around business priorities, including the financial implications associated with employee retention, productivity and customer loyalty. By highlighting the economic benefits of reducing poverty, and aligning our message with their values and beliefs, we were able to create a much more constructive and useful dialogue.
When conducting research for Rogare’s project on gender issues in fundraising, we found other similar examples. One that stuck with us was how, when gender equality initiatives are framed as being about helping more women access leadership roles, men are less likely to support them, even if those men identify as feminists. The perception that they were being overlooked for career development would kickstart their internal “fairness” frame and they would sabotage the initiative, sometimes consciously, sometimes subconsciously, in response to the feeling of missing out.
However, when gender equality initiatives were framed as being an opportunity to give everyone a fair chance to succeed, they would be much more supportive, and actively put their female colleagues forward for the programmes.
The importance of understanding values and identities is reinforced further when we consider that facts alone are not enough to change hearts and minds. People don’t make decisions based on data alone – they’re influenced by their beliefs, life experiences and emotional connections.
“Facts matter enormously, but to be meaningful they must be framed in terms of their moral importance. Remember, you can only understand what the frames in your brain allow you to understand. If the facts don’t fit the frames in your brain, the frames in your brain stay and the facts are ignored or challenged or belittled,” wrote George Lakoff in Don’t Think of an Elephant.
Lakoff’s "family metaphor" is a useful way of understanding this. He identifies two dominant moral worldviews:
The Strict Father worldview: This sees the world as dangerous and competitive. People must be taught right from wrong through discipline. Personal responsibility is paramount. In this frame, poverty, homelessness, crime etc is the result of bad choices or weak character – and change must come from the individual.
The Nurturant Parent worldview: This sees the world as improvable. People are inherently good and the role of society is to care for one another. Poverty, homelessness, crime etc in this frame, is a systemic failure – not a personal one – and society has a responsibility to act.
Most people don’t fit neatly into one category or the other. Many hold a mix of views depending on the issue. But understanding which frame dominates – and how to communicate within or across those frames – is critical for those of us trying to shift hearts and minds.
It’s when we identify where people are, emotionally and morally, and meet them there, that have our communications have the most power.
Agenda’s Comms Lab offers a space for this type of deep thinking, practical experimentation and transformational change in the way we communicate.
At its core, the Comms Lab helps us better understand people and places, so we can match our frames to those of our target audiences – not the ones we wish they had, but the ones they actually do. It’s about tuning into how people see the world, identifying where narratives are changing, and adapting our messages accordingly.
We believe that good communications can be a force for real, lasting change. If you’re working on big issues and want your communications to have more impact, we’d love to hear from you.
In the meantime, here are 10 communications concepts to consider when designing strategies, narratives and campaigns, which you can download for free.
This blog is adapted from Becky Slack’s presentation at Changing hearts and minds on Wednesday 4 June.
