What is Strategic Communications?

//what is strategic communications?

 

ICPA has adopted a strategic communications approach to integrate our more recent work on narrative change targeting public debates with our long-standing work focused on policy advocacy. We’ve seen that the size of the challenge on issues that currently polarise society (e.g. migration and civic space) requires a more-encompassing and broader response to achieve lasting change (or something more vibrant to really turn the tide).

As a result, we’ve embraced a longer-term strategy that moves beyond individual or ad-hoc interventions, going beyond what is normally considered communications work to incorporate the multi-faceted work of organisations and networks. Going to the movement level, our focus is to support different organisations/networks to appreciate and play their (specific or suitable?) role in creating the narrative power needed to not only shift public debates, but ultimately target a change in norms and rules (legal/policy change): a strategic communication approach.

 

Strategic communications as a theory of change:

Strategic communications is the long-term process of transforming public narratives that shape the boundaries of public acceptability on policy and legal decisions. To sustainably shift these boundaries, actors need to:
  •  build consistent voice and visibility of their narratives in media spaces (or target narrative presence) and;
  •  design and implement engaging interventions to socialise narratives in relationships and everyday thinking and practice (or target narrative immersion).
  •  In so doing, a strategic comms approach aims to catalyse a shift in existing norms and open the space to change the rules, both the unwritten rules of culture and the written rules of policy/law (or achieve narrative power).
This definition is influenced by the practice and thinking of Rashad Robinson (Color of Change) and Frank Sharry (America’s Voice)
 
Power_Immersion_Presence
 

 

Three guiding principles:

On top of these theory of change targets at three connected levels, we also propose three guiding principles to inform the work:
Three Guiding Principles