Media driven social policy
Decca works with a well known activist organization and explains how activists drive the social policy they want by engineering public support via the media.
“Gaining media attention is vital in order to ensure that our issue gains momentum and becomes more personally and politically important to everyone,” explains Decca. “Presented daily with a plethora of news items and other issues, all vying for attention, the media demands edgy stories – so we need to develop all sorts of exploitative angles to push our issue to the forefront in the media.”
“We cannot afford to allow people to become tired of the issue, or even bored with it,” says Decca. “We need to keep on pushing so that everyone can see the magnitude of the problem is as great as ever, and as newsworthy as ever; and, because we are in the same marketplace as commercial advertisers, our media strategies must be as good or better than theirs.”
“Acts of civil disobedience, such as graffiti spray painting advertising billboards, sit-ins, etc are well-known activist tactics,” says Decca. “Especially so when media coverage promotes them as being done for a good cause so that activists are not seen as extremists but as decent people whose response to the disgusting activity is sane and fair.”
“Piggybacking on other issues is also a tactic used by activists to gain media attention,” says Decca. “If the ‘disgusting’ activity has any health or environmental aspects for instance, then the growing concern already being generated in relation to bigger issues can be used most effectively to add value. For instance, the nonsmokers' rights movement piggybacked on the Civil Rights Movement and, before that, Feminism.”
“People with harmful personal experience of the product (or relatives or friends of such people) can be used very effectively for shock value – e.g. Yul Brynner dying of lung cancer from smoking,” says Decca, “as can manipulative television documentaries on the evils of the industry, distributed world wide to be seen by millions of people.”
“Using celebrities for our media campaigns is good value for widening community support,” says Decca. “Often activists are seen as enemies of freedom, pleasure-haters or lunatics, so celebrities who belie this stereotype can be very useful.”
“We also make tactical use of venues – holding press conferences where we can take full advantage of the issue,” explains Decca. “You know, outside nuclear establishments, army barracks, police stations, cancer wards, morgues, etc.”
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Labels: activism, civil disobedience, Media, public support, shock value, social policy
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