Thanks Jamie, this is super super interesting and have shared with our strategy team at Animal Rebellion. Feels validating as we’re doing some of the above points you’ve mentioned (institutional tactics vs individual change, diversifying beyond corporate campaigns, pressure tactics etc.) but there’s a couple here I’m more curious about:
EXPLORE OPPORTUNITIES TO BYPASS PUBLIC OPINION
For this recommendation (and focusing less on increasing issue salience to a degree), I worry that not doing so will help us win the technical challenges early on but then will leave us struggling down the line when it comes to the larger “morality”-related steps later on, such as banning factory farming completely. Do you think we’ll be able to make those larger steps without widespread public support or do you believe we should focus on increasing public support at a later date, perhaps when we’ve already had more wins or figured out a great issue framing?
Also whilst it’s not clear to me how easy it is to change public opinion, I’ve been doing some research on Extinction Rebellion (see one graph below) that they’ve been able to significantly alter public opinion for about £500,000, which seems well worth it. For reference, Extinction Rebellion start in mid 2018 so the gradual increase before then I believe could be attributed to them too.
Media coverage can encourage institutional change.
We do this quite effectively in my opinion (150+ media mentions for one action) however it seems to against your recommendation of focusing less on increasing issue salience. How would you reconcile these things? And when you refer to media, are you referring to certain forms of media publications or those aimed at certain audience? An example, is it best to try get into mainstream TV, LadBible or newspapers aimed at conservatives?
Selecting and encouraging the most compelling issue framings in public discourse can have substantial effects on public opinion.
Whilst we definitely try to do this, it’s extremely hard to know which issue framing or messaging performs best as there hasn’t been much substantive work on issue farming for animal advocacy to my knowledge (very worth funding imo). Also, it seems ideal if the animal movement could collaborate on a shared issue framing as it seems that’s when movements are most effective at changing public discourse, when a shared message is used from different angles and institutions.
Thanks for the engagement James and for sharing with Animal Rebellion!
Do you think we’ll be able to make those larger steps without widespread public support or do you believe we should focus on increasing public support at a later date, perhaps when we’ve already had more wins or figured out a great issue framing?
My guess is that we can. The evidence that policy change --> public opinion change is not just limited to social movement evidence. I’ve nearly finished a first draft of a post on “Effective strategies for changing public opinion” (which I suspect you’ll be v interested in!). Here’s the relevant section, though I’ve omitted the lengthy footnotes:
“Oskamp and Schultz (2005) summarize several studies showing that public opinion often follows US foreign policy quite closely. There is evidence that public opinion changes can occur from policies affecting social issues and the breadth of the moral circle, too. Some studies suggest that international policies and policies in neighboring jurisdictions can also affect public opinion. When the Supreme Court makes a decision, this tends to cause public opinion to move towards the opinion implied by that decision, though this does not always happen. This all suggests that if advocates can encourage policy change, public opinion will tend to move towards support for those policies. Nevertheless, political scientist James Stimson (2015) presents evidence that public preferences regarding the general direction of further government action sometimes shift in the opposite direction to trends in government policy itself.”
There are also various other positive effects (some discussed in the blog post above or the associated spreadsheet) from policy changes that might help, e.g. “Once influential institutions in one country or region adopt a value, they can influence institutions elsewhere to adopt the same value” and “Legislative change can positively affect individual behavior” (which might in turn affect attitudes, advocacy etc).
I think of lots of caveats to my answer that “my guess is that we can,” but I’ll resist the temptation to spend the rest of the day typing up thoughts on those nuances.
One that I will comment on briefly is that the case studies also highlight that “Legislative change can cause backlash and counter-mobilization”. So its true that if radical change is won at the policy level but the movement is not sufficiently prepared to defend those victories, it could cause more problems than its worth.
I do think we should “explore opportunities to bypass public opinion” but I can see a case for trying to do so on lower stakes or more technical issues first, for example.
Also whilst it’s not clear to me how easy it is to change public opinion, I’ve been doing some research on Extinction Rebellion (see one graph below)
Thanks for sharing this, that’s very interesting. Some caveats on that graph:
Public opinion seems to have been trending upwards, as you point out, and I’m not sure if there are other factors at play.
Attitude change tends not to last for very long without repeated re-exposure or consolidation (see forthcoming research I mentioned I’m doing!) so its possible that the spike will be temporary.
That said, the spike does look very impressive, so that’s still a slight update for me.
it seems to against your recommendation of focusing less on increasing issue salience. How would you reconcile these things?
I think the forthcoming research on public opinion change that I mentioned will bring some clarity to this. Some quick thoughts:
There is evidence that the media can have an “agenda-setting” effect, i.e. make people think that certain issues are more important/pressing. This can encourage political attention—whether that attention is helpful or counterproductive would depend on the specifics. To take one example of where high issue salience led to harmful regulation, see the section on “Increased public awareness was linked with increased negative sentiment” here. (That example arguably shows that activism --> helpful regulation, but I think it also demonstrates the point that, if you take the perspective of the GM startups, salience in itself is not necessarily helpful.)
Similarly, media coverage can influence the reader’s attitudes through a number of different mechanisms. If the coverage is negative or highlights particular features/subissues that are less favourable to advocates’ goals, the effects on readers (including, potentially, policy-makers) could be the opposite to what was intended.
So the point is essentially that, yes, “Media coverage can encourage institutional change,” but that that could be for good or ill, depending on the coverage.
And when you refer to media, are you referring to certain forms of media publications or those aimed at certain audience? An example, is it best to try get into mainstream TV, LadBible or newspapers aimed at conservatives?
You might like to dig into the case studies I cite for the claim. I don’t think they help to make recommendations as specific as this.
That said, here’s some partly relevant content you might be interested in:
it’s extremely hard to know which issue framing or messaging performs best as there hasn’t been much substantive work on issue farming for animal advocacy to my knowledge (very worth funding imo).
Very much agreed.
it seems ideal if the animal movement could collaborate on a shared issue framing as it seems that’s when movements are most effective at changing public discourse, when a shared message is used from different angles and institutions.
I’m less sure about this. I can see that, in some instances, uniting resources and efforts around a particularly promising framing would be very helpful. But I also think that if often makes sense to tailor your messages to your audience quite substantially (see also “consistent vs. varying messaging”).
Thanks Jamie, this is super super interesting and have shared with our strategy team at Animal Rebellion. Feels validating as we’re doing some of the above points you’ve mentioned (institutional tactics vs individual change, diversifying beyond corporate campaigns, pressure tactics etc.) but there’s a couple here I’m more curious about:
For this recommendation (and focusing less on increasing issue salience to a degree), I worry that not doing so will help us win the technical challenges early on but then will leave us struggling down the line when it comes to the larger “morality”-related steps later on, such as banning factory farming completely. Do you think we’ll be able to make those larger steps without widespread public support or do you believe we should focus on increasing public support at a later date, perhaps when we’ve already had more wins or figured out a great issue framing?
Also whilst it’s not clear to me how easy it is to change public opinion, I’ve been doing some research on Extinction Rebellion (see one graph below) that they’ve been able to significantly alter public opinion for about £500,000, which seems well worth it. For reference, Extinction Rebellion start in mid 2018 so the gradual increase before then I believe could be attributed to them too.
We do this quite effectively in my opinion (150+ media mentions for one action) however it seems to against your recommendation of focusing less on increasing issue salience. How would you reconcile these things? And when you refer to media, are you referring to certain forms of media publications or those aimed at certain audience? An example, is it best to try get into mainstream TV, LadBible or newspapers aimed at conservatives?
Whilst we definitely try to do this, it’s extremely hard to know which issue framing or messaging performs best as there hasn’t been much substantive work on issue farming for animal advocacy to my knowledge (very worth funding imo). Also, it seems ideal if the animal movement could collaborate on a shared issue framing as it seems that’s when movements are most effective at changing public discourse, when a shared message is used from different angles and institutions.
Thanks for the engagement James and for sharing with Animal Rebellion!
My guess is that we can. The evidence that policy change --> public opinion change is not just limited to social movement evidence. I’ve nearly finished a first draft of a post on “Effective strategies for changing public opinion” (which I suspect you’ll be v interested in!). Here’s the relevant section, though I’ve omitted the lengthy footnotes:
“Oskamp and Schultz (2005) summarize several studies showing that public opinion often follows US foreign policy quite closely. There is evidence that public opinion changes can occur from policies affecting social issues and the breadth of the moral circle, too. Some studies suggest that international policies and policies in neighboring jurisdictions can also affect public opinion. When the Supreme Court makes a decision, this tends to cause public opinion to move towards the opinion implied by that decision, though this does not always happen. This all suggests that if advocates can encourage policy change, public opinion will tend to move towards support for those policies. Nevertheless, political scientist James Stimson (2015) presents evidence that public preferences regarding the general direction of further government action sometimes shift in the opposite direction to trends in government policy itself.”
There are also various other positive effects (some discussed in the blog post above or the associated spreadsheet) from policy changes that might help, e.g. “Once influential institutions in one country or region adopt a value, they can influence institutions elsewhere to adopt the same value” and “Legislative change can positively affect individual behavior” (which might in turn affect attitudes, advocacy etc).
I think of lots of caveats to my answer that “my guess is that we can,” but I’ll resist the temptation to spend the rest of the day typing up thoughts on those nuances.
One that I will comment on briefly is that the case studies also highlight that “Legislative change can cause backlash and counter-mobilization”. So its true that if radical change is won at the policy level but the movement is not sufficiently prepared to defend those victories, it could cause more problems than its worth.
I do think we should “explore opportunities to bypass public opinion” but I can see a case for trying to do so on lower stakes or more technical issues first, for example.
Thanks for sharing this, that’s very interesting. Some caveats on that graph:
Public opinion seems to have been trending upwards, as you point out, and I’m not sure if there are other factors at play.
Attitude change tends not to last for very long without repeated re-exposure or consolidation (see forthcoming research I mentioned I’m doing!) so its possible that the spike will be temporary.
That said, the spike does look very impressive, so that’s still a slight update for me.
I think the forthcoming research on public opinion change that I mentioned will bring some clarity to this. Some quick thoughts:
There is evidence that the media can have an “agenda-setting” effect, i.e. make people think that certain issues are more important/pressing. This can encourage political attention—whether that attention is helpful or counterproductive would depend on the specifics. To take one example of where high issue salience led to harmful regulation, see the section on “Increased public awareness was linked with increased negative sentiment” here. (That example arguably shows that activism --> helpful regulation, but I think it also demonstrates the point that, if you take the perspective of the GM startups, salience in itself is not necessarily helpful.)
Similarly, media coverage can influence the reader’s attitudes through a number of different mechanisms. If the coverage is negative or highlights particular features/subissues that are less favourable to advocates’ goals, the effects on readers (including, potentially, policy-makers) could be the opposite to what was intended.
So the point is essentially that, yes, “Media coverage can encourage institutional change,” but that that could be for good or ill, depending on the coverage.
You might like to dig into the case studies I cite for the claim. I don’t think they help to make recommendations as specific as this.
That said, here’s some partly relevant content you might be interested in:
“Influencer vs. mass outreach”
“Controversial publicity stunts vs. other tactics”
Very much agreed.
I’m less sure about this. I can see that, in some instances, uniting resources and efforts around a particularly promising framing would be very helpful. But I also think that if often makes sense to tailor your messages to your audience quite substantially (see also “consistent vs. varying messaging”).