People, the Media and Shared Interest: Final Thoughts from the SPPG-Evergreen Course
This past week was the last “in-the-field” class for the SPPG-Evergreen course. As such, greater reflection is required to sum up the key takeaway messages I have garnered from this intensive course.
At the beginning of the day, we were given some “golden rules” that we should aim to address in both life and in policy. Additionally, we were treated to stories and experiences from a number of change-makers, including Gita Madan, Samiya Abdi and Jay Wall. I have chosen to focus on a few ideas raised in the morning and reiterated throughout the afternoon that have resonated.
1) Putting People First:
While I have discussed this importance in another blog post, it is a mantra that has been appropriately echoed over the last number of weeks. We must put people first in policy. We must understand people, not as a hypothetical cohort that may partake in a particular service or program, but rather as everyday people like you and me. People have different personalities, irrationalities, fears, and temperaments. Understanding their psychologies and the dynamics that carry them throughout the day may ultimately lead to better designed policies and services for the whole. To do this we need to talk to people, understand their concerns and effectively translate them to create stronger policy for our community.
2) The Media: Tread with Caution
The importance of frames and a narrative became adamantly clear from the panel of change-makers. Specifically, how the media may play a role in one’s strategy for a specific cause. In some cases, media involvement allows for your cause to gain more attention or to have an idea “go viral.” Jay Wall (Principal and Creative Director at Studio Jaywall) spoke about one of his collaborations being mocked in an article by the Huffington Post. While it might not have been flattering attention, it still brought people to the cause.
On the other end of the spectrum, Gita Madan, in describing her experience as a member of “Education Not Incarceration”, spoke more of hesitancy when the media became involved in one of the organization’s campaigns. Media was not initially part of their strategy, and there had to be assurance about certain elements not being lost by the wayside; How would members of the media describe the story and its narration, how would the characters be portrayed? While the media can spread an organization’s message, it may not be the detailed, consciously thought-out message a change-maker wishes them to disseminate. Frames and influencing factors for advocacy work may escalate out of your control when the media gets involved.
In relation to our own project on urban flooding, mapping out media stakeholders has seemed ambiguous. While some stakeholders, such as politicians, NGO’s and researchers have more easily fallen into the categories of support for or against our proposed solution, media organizations have been harder to categorize. This feels unnerving and ambiguous when developing a campaign and not really knowing the influence the media will have in potentially helping or hindering its goals.
Having worked within the media for a number of years, I have been aware of this influence from the media’s perspective. From the outside, there is a more “tread-with-caution” approach to media’s involvement as a tactic for advocacy work. The influence that the media can have and the story it presents in relation to your policy strategy should not be underestimated. Marshal McLuhan put it best: “the medium is the message”.
3) “Shared Interest”
In reaching our policy goals as an NGO, we have to identify other stakeholders’ self-interest and show them the value for themselves in supporting our strategy. This is ideally manifested as “shared interest”.
As simplistic as the above diagram is, this idea stuck with me because of two related complexities: the quantity of potential stakeholders followed by the quality of that interaction.
Firstly, if the power mapping exercise was any indication, there can be a great number of stakeholders attached to an initiative. Media, politicians, government staff, government agencies, community associations, businesses small and large and research organizations are just some of the stakeholders one may need to include in a strategy. Can we come to a shared interest with each and every one of them?
Secondly, knowing how many stakeholders there are, we may be limited in the quality of our engagement with each one in arriving at that shared value. Although we may want to please everyone or present our issue in a way that shows a shared interest for everyone, that may simply not be possible, given time and resource constraints, as well as potential deep ideological differences. One organization’s self-interest may be your organization’s downfall!
This raises more issues: knowing that you are limited in your abilities, how do you know you are taking the right approach in targeting certain individuals or organizations and not others for your strategy? The shared interest you have with one stakeholder may be the main source of disagreement with another.
We could take the approach outlined by Unsicker: “…most often the best choice is one that involves the least amount of confrontation or conflict to achieve the objective…even if unsuccessful, a non-confrontational first attempt may win allies and increase support for subsequent efforts that scale up the level of confrontation.”[1]
This is an incremental solution; however, could it work given potential resource constraints?
Furthermore, what happens if there is no shared interest between you and another important stakeholder? This was something discussed by our panel, who tackled major disagreements and confrontations with institutions like the government. We can’t please everyone in our goals.
These are just three ideas gained from the last class at Evergreen Brickworks. However, these are far from the only insights obtained over the last number of weeks. What a wonderful whirlwind this course has been!
Signing off,
Ian T. D. Thomson
[1] Unsicker, Jeff. 2013. “Strategy: People Power and Other Methods,” and “Advocacy Evaluation and Learning,” in Confronting Power: The Practice of Policy Advocacy, pp. 151–165 and 225–245. Sterling, Va.: Kumarian Press.
