Covid has given us unprecedented view of the communication process between politicians and the media. With that has come questions around whether certain aspects are purely political. Over the weekend Twitter was of abuzz with two strategies in particular: Leaking information to the media - restrictions and covid numbers Tweaks to language e.g. lockdowns vs circuit breakers vs stay at home orders Quite often these communication strategies are dismissed as purely political – but do they provide some communication value to the community? Here I’ll break down my view on each – whether they are purely political or not and the communication lessons we can all learn from these strategies. Let's start with… Leaking Covid restrictions to media My View: Not entirely political - has communication benefits Why are they doing it: While those actively engaged in politics and world events might like to believe everyone is, it's simply not true. A large portion of the population have no interest, so how do you make sure they receive your message? By using existing communication channels and repeating your message - a lot! This would be one of the reasons information is leaked to the media. The media is an expected information source and by providing information prior to a briefing - which may be many hours away - it's one more opportunity for people to receive that message. Lesson: Not everyone's listening to your message it needs to be repeated through multiple, existing communication channels Know where your audience generally sources and receives information and use those channels. One communication may not be enough to get their attention and understanding of your message. Quite often things need to be repeated through multiple channels for example on the intranet, a bulk email and followed up in ateam meeting. Leaking Covid numbers to the media My View: leaking the night before - mainly political | the morning of - has some legitimacy Why are they doing it: - the night before Personally I think this is mostly political. There's no obvious reason why people need to know the number of covid cases the previous night. It's likely just to soften the blow for the next days briefing. The main issue I have with just providing a number is it doesn't give us the context needed to understand whether it's good or bad. What are people to do with this information? Does knowing there are 111 cases right before bed help you in any way? It seems NSW is using this tactic at the moment. My concern is that there's such a significant gap between the media releasing the number and the following days press conference at 11am that it probably does more harm in raising anxiety levels than anything else. - the morning of Occasionally Vic does leak numbers in the morning prior to an official notification. I don't feel these are purely political but also don't think it offers much from a comms standpoint. My guess is this happens when they're still collating the details of the numbers and, since Vic has a fairly regular, they leak knowing they are "running late" and want to reduce the amount of people asking what the numbers are. Lesson: Have a reason to communicate your message - what do you want people to think/do differently. Context is important Whenever you're delivering information make sure you understand why. What is the point of the communication - are you trying to inform or change behaviour or something else? Be deliberate in your communications. If you can't provide all the necessary details now hold of or advise when you will be able to. Tweaks to language My View: mainly political Why are they doing it: I would say this is politically motivated. Politics is driven by perception and changing language is a way to do that. What worries me is that it causes confusion in an already complex environment. Why? Well, imagine you're back in 2019. Someone tells you the following year your entire country would be in lockdown. What do you think that would entail? Without having what it means explained to you it would be very hard to know what a lockdown specifically involved. This is true of any new word or label. We now know what lockdown means and how it will affect us. But every time it is re-labelled e.g circuit breaker/stay at home orders, it causes a level of confusion while people work out what this new label actually means. This is not to say that language shouldn't change. Over time there are valid reasons to change language but there is always a learning curve for people to understand its meaning. Now if you have plenty of time to educate your audience, that's fine. But when you want action or behavior change straight away it's best to avoid confusion and stick with common language. Lesson 1: Use common, understood language It's always best to use language commonly understood by your audience. Using known language will mean your message will be conveyed much quicker with less confusion. Note what is common in one organisation may not be in another. This doesn't mean that you can never rename or change your language in your organisations but.... Lesson 2: If defining something new be prepared to spend a lot of time explaining and re-explaining yourself Have a strong plan for how you're going to explain to your audience what your new language means. Acknowledge that this will take time. Expect some confusion. Is there any other comms strategy politician use that you can't get your head around? Let me know in the comments.
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