2/2/2024 0 Comments Impact in storywritingInstitutions are the rules people use in policymaking, including the formal, written down, and well understood rules setting out who is responsible for certain issues, and the informal, unwritten, and unclear rules informing action. Institutions: learn the ‘rules of the game’.Sometimes, the same story can succeed with one audience but fail with another. An emotional appeal can transform a factual case, but only if you know how people engage emotionally with information. So, your aim may be to influence the simple ways in which people understand the world, to influence their demand for more information. Ambiguity relates to the fact that policymakers can understand a policy problem in many different ways – such as tobacco as an economic good, issue of civil liberties, or public health epidemic – but often pay exclusive attention to one. Your aim shifts from providing more and more evidence to reduce uncertainty about a problem, to providing a persuasive reason to reduce ambiguity. In other words, your audience combines cognition and emotion to deal with information, and they can ignore information for long periods then quickly shift their attention towards it, even if that information has not really changed.Ĭonsequently, an op-ed focusing solely ‘the facts’ can be relatively ineffective compared to an evidence-informed story, perhaps with a notional setting, plot, hero, and moral. To do so, they use ‘rational’ and ‘irrational’ means: selecting a limited number of regular sources of information, and relying on emotion, gut instinct, habit, and familiarity with information. Policymakers receive too much information, and seek ways to ignore most of it while making decisions. Policymaker psychology: tell an evidence-informed story.We can use the same broad concepts to help explain both processes, in which many policymakers and influencers interact across many levels and types of government to produce what we call ‘ policy’: Learn how policy environments influence their attention and choices.Learn how policymakers simplify their world, and.Two simple rules should help make this process somewhat clearer: My aim is to describe key aspects of politics and policymaking to help the audience learn why they should write op-eds in a particular way for particular audiences.Ī key rule in writing is to ‘know your audience’, but it’s easier said than done if you seek many sympathetic audiences in many parts of a complex policy process. There are other speakers with more experience of, and advice on, ‘op-ed’ writing. This is a post for my talk at the CEPOW event Write For Impact: Training In Op-Ed Writing For Policy Advocacy. His blog on public policy is here – – and his twitter is His research interests include: comparing theories on evidence and policy (The Politics of Evidence-Based Policymaking, 2016, and Understanding Public Policy, 2012) and the use of evidence to promote tobacco control (Global Tobacco Control, 2012, with Studlar and Mamudu), ‘prevention’ policies, and fracking. Paul Cairney is Professor of Politics and Public Policy, University of Stirling. Home / Blog / Opinion Writing / Writing for Impact: what you need to know, and 5 ways to know it Writing for Impact: what you need to know, and 5 ways to know it Writing for Impact: what you need to know, and 5 ways to know it.Impact Assessment and Evaluation in the EU: The Pinnacle of Policy Writing.How to be heard in Brussels and beyond: Executive training in speechwriting.Write for Impact: Op-ed Writing for Policy Advocacy.Online Masterclass in Policy Communications (November 23-27, 2020).EUROSTUDENT, February 2020 – Impact (policy-oriented) writing.EaP Fellows, May 2020 – Masterclass in Policy Communications.CEPS, June 2020 – Audience Mapping and Policy Storytelling.NCHFE, September 2020 – Strategy Development Training.IADB Training on policy communication for economists, 2022.2018 SUMMER SCHOOL | European Policy Communications in the Digital Era.2019 SUMMER SCHOOL | European Policy Communications in the Digital Era.2020 SUMMER SCHOOL | European Policy Communications in the Digital Era.Executive Certificate in Policy Communication (February-March 2023).
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