“Good stories surprise us. They have compelling characters. They make us think, make us feel. They stick in our minds and help us remember ideas and concepts in a way that numbers and text on a slide with a bar graph don’t.” Read more
Tag: communication for development
How media and communication drive social change: Evidence from BBC Media Action
Media and communication are powerful tools for social and behaviour change. Don’t believe me? Let this two-and-a-half minute video from BBC Media Action explain, with evidence to boot.
This video explains how BBC Media Action expects media and communication to lead to healthier practices by influencing factors that drive behaviour, such as knowledge, discussion, attitudes and social norms. To illustrate this ‘theory of change’, research and data from Bangladesh and Ethiopia are presented.
What’s your wish for refugee and migrant children?
Top illustrators from across the globe — including Christoph Niemann, Jean Jullien and Mrzyk & Moriceau — are answering this question via the #illustrators4children campaign (Twitter).
The campaign was launched by UNICEF ahead of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, where world leaders are currently gathered.
UNICEF aims to raise awareness of the refugee and migrant issue, which it says is “first and foremost a children’s crisis.”
Featured image: Screenshot from the #illustrators4children campaign on Instagram. Illustration by Ayumi Takahashi
Ethical image use: telling compelling stories while respecting peoples’ rights
Photo: Paul Akiko and his family with a polaroid of themselves in the village of Cuivir Rainha, Niassa, Mozambique. © WaterAid/ Panos/ Adam Patterson
In the field of communications for social development, images are king. But depending on how they are used, and despite the intention, they can have positive or negative consequences. Video and photographic images can spur emotions, connect people and cultures, raise awareness, enhance evidence-based advocacy and boost knowledge, leading to increased stakeholder support, funding, partnerships and policy change. However, they can also reinforce stereotypes, misconstrue messages, cause bad publicity and negative controversy, and lessen stakeholder support and funding. Key questions in the development sector include:
- How can organizations sensitively and fairly portray the needs they are trying to address?
- How can organizations give a fuller, more rounded picture of the places in which they work?
- How can organizations use emotive images of people and communities without compromising their rights?
As part of an organization’s content strategy, images should tell the full story – the trial and error, the failure and success, and the experiences and perspectives of all beneficiaries and stakeholders. And most importantly, all of these images should respect the rights of all of the people, communities and stakeholders included.
In order to address these aspects, it is important for organizations to develop video and photography guidelines, and more specifically, an ethical image policy. The NGO WaterAid recently released a comprehensive ethical image policy covering:
- Accuracy – ensuring videos and photos are truthful
- Consent – ensuring people fully understand why they are being photographed or filmed, and are comfortable with the process and outcomes
- Longevity – how long the images should be used
- Integrity – producing respectful images, avoiding stereotyping and ensuring privacy
- Manipulation – what is and is not allowed in post-production
- Child protection – ensuring that children featured in images are safe from harm
- Equality and non-discrimination – ensuring that video and photographic practices include everyone, even the most marginalized
Read WaterAid’s take on ethical image use or download their ethical image policy for inspiration.
Navigating the attention economy
Researchers and strategists including Herbert Simon, Thomas Davenport and Michael Goldhaber have deduced that we are living in an attention economy. Why is this? It stems from the fact that in this day and age there is an overabundance of information due to the rapid growth of web/digital media and technology. As early as 1971, Simon effectively articulated how an overabundance of information impacts attention:
“…in an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.”
In our information-rich world, attention is a scare and valuable commodity. So, how do we navigate this attention economy?
Surviving and thriving in the attention economy
Writing for The Media Online, David Smythe notes that never before have brands had to work so hard for an audience’s attention. “We’re moving away from a supply based media system influenced by marketers, to a demand-based media world driven by consumers … Before a brand can entertain or inform, its communication needs to be noticed,” he says.
Smythe highlights various trends that can help marketers survive and thrive in this world:
- Harnessing the power of Storytelling, storymaking and storybuilding. “Information that has been humanised and enriched through storytelling is persuasive and has greater memorability,” Smythe says. My previous post touched on the power of storytelling.
- Ephemeral/momentary marketing. It can be reasonably assumed that attention starved and time deprived consumers will probably respond well to branded content that is fleeting, yet relevant. The rise of Snapchat is a good example. “By devising temporary marketing schemes, brands are appealing to a desire amongst people to consume smaller forms of content in a way that is both easy and efficient,” Smythe says.
- Me marketing. Smythe notes that a prevailing trend suggests that every individual is now a marketer, and we all want to be marketed to individually. “There can be no more powerful way for a brand to capture attention by speaking to the consumer as if they were an individual with their own unique wants and needs … It speaks to the use of personalisation to guarantee sustained attention.”
- Easing the consumer decision journey. Consumers are faced with too much information and are time-deprived. This leaves them feeling that they are not always making the right choices. Smythe notes that brands that become known for making the decision making process a little simpler will secure disproportionate attention ahead of the average.
- Brand sacrifice. Smythe notes that in the 21st century, brands that sacrifice, or display some form of altruism, enjoy disproportionate attention ahead of the average. “More millennials than non-millennials integrate their beliefs and causes into their choice of companies to support, their purchases and their day-to-day interactions,” he says. “Sacrifices can be large or small; they can change the world or just the consumer’s world.”
Who are ‘attention workers’?
In a paper for the Innovation Journalism journal, Vilma Luoma-aho and Saara Halonen describe the role of ‘attention workers’, or professional brokers of attention. They emphasize that as attention becomes increasingly scarce, the influence of attention workers rises. In this context, attention workers can include journalists, public relations practitioners, marketers, advertisers, lobbyists and other actors. They are professionals who aim to distribute information and knowledge effectively, increasing social capital in the process. Identifying and cultivating these attention workers could go a long way for organizations.
Look out for my next post, where I’ll touch on some challenges associated with the attention economy.
Photo: Copyright woodleywonderworks, Flickr
