Page 281 - The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

Public Support for Regulating the Public 257

actions a coalition should take to gain media attention. Broadly, the litera-
ture suggests that to be effective, the coalition should cultivate relation-
ships with members of the media, create news, and present its message
with an audience-attracting “hook.” News can be created by staging events,
reporting survey results, conducting tours, creating links with highly tra-
ditional newsworthy events, and so on. Hooks include such “tricks” as
linking the story to a celebrity, having a personal or local angle, using an
anniversary or milestone, using great visuals, and so forth. (See Wallack,
et al., 1993, and Siegel & Lotenberg, 2007, for an extended discussion of
effective strategies and tactics.) In summary, case histories strongly sup-
port the idea that Link “b” (see Figure 9.1) exists if the coalition uses effec-
tive strategies and tactics.

The Direct Consequences of Media Attention

A potential objective of media advocacy is to directly influence policy
makers (Figure 9.1, Link “c”). There are numerous case studies in which
successful efforts to gain media coverage also resulted in positive policy
changes (Wallack et al., 1993). The consistent pattern is that legislators
and potential coalition members do pay attention to the media. In addi-
tion, studies in the mass communication literature use aggregate data (e.g.,
Gallup polls) to test the level of association between measures of news
coverage, measures of the relative importance of an issue in the minds of
voters, and measures of congressional action on an issue. These studies
find significant correlations (Tan & Weaver, 2007). Furthermore, media
advocacy may be needed to “balance the playing field” when opposing
forces have many resources. Media attention and public opinion are neces-
sary to drive policy when the opposition may be able to forestall policy
change by pooling financial resources and “buying votes” with political
contributions (Wilson, 1980).

Attracting the Public’s Attention

The goals of media advocacy and message dissemination are the same.
The first goal is to raise the public’s awareness of the issue (Figure 9.1, Link
“d”)—in other words, to put it on the public agenda (Lippmann, 1965,
p. 229). Lippmann was interested in explaining how the news media influ-
enced what people thought. He argued that the “mass media are like the
beam of a searchlight that moves restlessly about, bring one episode and
then another out of the darkness into vision.” The underlying theory was
transfer of salience (McCombs, Liamas, Lopez-Escobar, & Rey, 1997). The