Topic: Evaluating Messages
This E-Zine is about sharpening your skills in evaluating the tactical advantages and disadvantages of a given message. We'll deconstruct a message to discern whether it helps or hurts a specific social problem. And we'll do so by using a set of key questions that you can apply to future communications problem-solving.
The key word here is TACTICAL. Too often issues advocates evaluate a message too literally, asking questions like: is it true? do I believe it? is it framed the way policy advocates understand the problem? is it consistent with what policy advocates tell us is needed? While it is important that the message you use to advance public consideration of a policy situation or solution be "true," that is far from the only consideration that should be brought to bear before going public. Thinking tactically, you will want to ask and answer the following five questions:
- what does the suggested message tell people this issue is ABOUT, or connected to?
- does the suggested message expand or narrow the CONSTITUENCY for this issue?
- does it promote a FRAME on the issue that favors your position, or does it default to a negative frame?
- does it increase or decrease the SALIENCE of the issue ?
- does it assign RESPONSIBILITY for the problem to those who have the power to solve the problem?
For purposes of this exercise, we're going to examine the way that the release of the Surgeon General's Report on Oral Health was framed, using the core message of "disparities." Here's an example of the language used in the report, and used extensively in media materials and resulting media coverage, as covered by the June 2000 issue of JAMA:
Oral Disease a Silent Epidemic
Joan Stephenson, Ph.D.Despite dramatic improvements in oral health for many Americans over the past half-century, a "silent epidemic" of untreated oral diseases, from dental caries to oral cancers, is burdening the poor and minorities, asserts the first-ever Surgeon General's report on the topic."This report illustrates the profound disparities that affect those without the knowledge or resources to achieve good oral care," said Surgeon General David Satcher, who presented the report's findings at a press conference last month.
Economically disadvantaged groups are less likely to have dental insurance or the ability to pay out-of-pocket dental expenses, and they also have other barriers to dental care, such as a lack of transportation or the ability to take personal time off from work, the report notes.
On the face of it, there is little to contest in this positioning. We know there are massive disparities in services available to the poor and minorities. We know they take their toll on health as well as on income and achievement. Most of us believe such disparities to be unfair and many believe it is the job of government to level the playing field for children's achievement by opening up opportunities in such critically foundational areas as education and health care. So what's the problem?
Now, quickly, answer the following questions:
Q: What does the suggested message tell people this issue is ABOUT, or connected to?
A: Problems afflicting the poor and minorities.
Q: Does the suggested message expand or narrow the CONSTITUENCY for this issue?
A: At the very least, it narrows the constituency to those afflicted and those concerned for those afflicted. Even assuming a best case scenario, in which racism and classism play little role, "It's not about me," is the likely take-away message for most Americans.Q: Does it promote a FRAME on the issue that favors your position, or does it default to a negative frame?
A: The problem is framed as a natural disaster, an epidemic, which is not likely to make people feel powerful to reverse it. Second, the answer is "knowledge" or "resources," inferring that those afflicted are incompetent or just plain poor. Applied to children's oral health, the default frame is likely to be "bad parents" who lack knowledge, values or both.
Q: Does it increase or decrease the SALIENCE of the issue ?
A: It tells us that the poor lack dental insurance and dental care. But they lack lots of other things we already thought were important: health care, education, money! When we are forced to prioritize what we would provide to this segment of the population, oral health care quickly falls to the bottom of the list behind other services we already understand as critical.
Q. Does it does it assign RESPONSIBILITY for the problem to those who have the power to solve the problem?
A. The only actor in the message is the poor person. They are seen as unable to secure resources, transportation, knowledge, etc.
Is the framing of the oral health message as "disparities" a good one? Probably not, at least not as a lead concept.
It signals to people that this is not about them; it's about other people. It limits the constituency. It implies that little can be done by others, because it's a problem of epidemic proportions. It reduces the salience of the specific issue. And it quickly reduces to a "blame/fix the victim" responsibility frame. If the message is conveyed by a liberal politician, or other known advocate for the poor and minorities, it is likely to be further discounted as "expected."
These are the "unintended consequences" of letting the desired policy outcome serve as the frame, assuming that the analysis of the problem is the equivalent of tactical message planning.
Now let's raise an even more fundamental issue: is "disparities" a tactic or a goal? On the one hand, disparities might be seen as a strategy to achieving public prioritization of children's oral health care. In this case, we would evaluate its effectiveness in realizing this outcome. If it did not deliver this outcome as effectively as other tactics, we would drop it in favor of those better arguments. If, on the other hand, we see disparities as an inexorable part of the outcome, we have a different situation. Is it imperative that the public not only prioritize children's oral health care, but also that people admit that disparities in the population must be addressed? If so, we are vastly complicating our task by insisting that the public not only act appropriately, but act on the right information.
For the Surgeon General, public understanding of the causes and consequences of health disparities is part of the goal; he has made disparities a theme of his tenure. Therefore, for Dr. Satcher, the framing of children's oral health issues is necessarily linked to this theme. It is, in fact, emblematic of a larger issue he wishes the public to understand. But for children's advocates unencumbered by this goal, the tactical question is germane: are we tying one issue to another without considering what is gained and lost in the association?
In a previous e-zine, we suggested other approaches to helping the public prioritize children's oral health. It should be noted that our research suggests that, without literally mentioning poor children, the public will prioritize their care first, if presented with the prevalence, severity and consequences of oral disease. So the question arises: if you can deliver the opinion outcome you set out to achieve without limiting your constituency, why lead with the disparities argument? At the very least, open your argument with statistics that show how common the problem is, not how isolated - for every child without medical insurance, there are 2.6 without dental insurance.
Conflating tactics with outcomes is easy to do. Make sure that you know what action or opinion outcome you want to achieve and evaluate the effectiveness of your chosen message in getting you there.
Every day, children's advocates are confronted with communications campaigns that invite your involvement - the XYZ ad campaign - and many come complete with foundation funding and "free" materials, such as posters and PSAs that carry your organization's name. While we heartily endorse the importance of weighing in with the media on children's issues, we also believe in weighing the quality of the campaigns before you jump in! Deconstruct the message that underpins the campaign and evaluate its potential impact on the issues you care about. Don't be afraid to ask for the research on which the campaign is based. What makes the initiators think this will positively affect children's issues? And don't be afraid to question anyone's logic with your own analysis of the five key tactical questions.
