{"id":2838242,"date":"2022-11-02T10:45:53","date_gmt":"2022-11-02T15:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/articles\/\/"},"modified":"2022-11-02T10:45:53","modified_gmt":"2022-11-02T15:45:53","slug":"are-we-communicating-information-that-our-audiences-dont-want-to-receive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/articles\/are-we-communicating-information-that-our-audiences-dont-want-to-receive\/","title":{"rendered":"Are we communicating information that our audiences don\u2019t want to receive?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Communicating policy to audiences when there\u2019s already too much information out there is a challenge \u2013 sometimes our audiences just don\u2019t want to know. The researcher and policy-maker Cass Sunstein experienced this. After months of working hard with the US Food and Drug Administration to establish a new regulation, he had finally ensured that restaurants and movie theatres had to display the calories contained in the food that they sell. Happy about the results, he emailed a friend to share the news. His friend, however, was not as enthusiastic: \u2018Cass, you ruined popcorn\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

This story is part of Sunstein\u2019s latest book, <\/span>Too Much Information<\/span><\/i><\/a>, where he offers a new perspective on the issue of transparency and public data that\u2019s so dear to all knowledge producers. We know that transparency is good, that knowledge sets us free, and that we have the right to <\/span>know<\/span><\/i>. The open data movement is probably one of the best news of today\u2019s democracies. But do we know too much? We\u2019re swimming in a sea of information, and many of us are tiring of the struggle to stay afloat. As Sunstein said, giving information is only useful if our audiences are willing to receive it and make use of it.<\/span><\/p>\n

People seek or avoid information in two different ways. One is pragmatic: we want to know something because it can be useful to us. For example: if I\u2019m going to visit you, give me your address; if I\u2019m not coming, don\u2019t give it to me. Or: give me the graphs that I need to make a good decision; don\u2019t give me the ones that I don\u2019t need.<\/span><\/p>\n

The other way is hedonistic: will receiving this information make me feel good, give me pleasure, or make me happy? Will it speak directly to one of my interests and keep me engaged?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There are also many things that we’d rather not know just to avoid getting upset. For example, Sunstein cites studies in his book showing that people consume less stock market information when the market\u2019s on a downward trend. Also, in one of his survey studies, only 42% of participants were interested in knowing what their family and friends thought about them. More than half preferred not to know! And only 27% of the participants wanted to know in what year they\u2019ll die.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But what does all this mean for researchers, policy-makers, and think tank communicators, like us at Sociop\u00fablico? <\/span><\/p>\n

We tend to assume that the public wants to know everything that\u2019s <\/span>useful<\/span><\/i> to them. Other information-givers do this too, e.g., doctors, regulators, judges, and educators. Indeed, if we\u2019re serious and strategic about our communications, we start by thinking about our audiences\u2019 needs, their pain points, and the ways that our information may suit them.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, Sunstein proposes something different. He urges us to put emotion and pleasure at the centre of our thinking on how to communicate. It\u2019s not the only defining factor, but it\u2019s the one that our audiences use the most to decide what information to consume. Yet, surprisingly, it\u2019s the one that\u2019s most often overlooked by information-givers.<\/span><\/p>\n

We know that we have emotional brains. And our behaviour towards data is related to the biases that affect our decisions. However, when we talk about information, we generally use the lens of reason.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We forget that we don\u2019t want to consume stock market data about a bearish market because of our aversion to loss, which makes us suffer failures more than we enjoy triumphs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We forget that we have a present bias, which makes us care more about enjoying our popcorn <\/span>now,<\/span><\/i> than about taking care of our health by reading the nutritional information.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We forget that we often underestimate our ability to recover from difficult news, so we avoid going to the doctor when we suspect a serious illness. But it\u2019s been proven that receiving bad news gives us a bad day and not necessarily a bad few months \u2013 we\u2019re more resilient and adaptable than we think.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Remembering that these biases exist, and that the usefulness of our information won\u2019t necessarily compel our audiences to listen, could help all information-givers. It could help us to understand when we should communicate our information to our audiences, and how we should frame our content for them.<\/span><\/p>\n

And if we struggle to find the right tone or to spark the curiosity of our audiences, we can always succumb to popcorn ourselves, and try again tomorrow.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Communicating policy to audiences when there\u2019s already too much information out there is a challenge \u2013 sometimes our audiences just don\u2019t want to know. The researcher and policy-maker Cass Sunstein experienced this. After months of working hard with the US Food and Drug Administration to establish a new regulation, he had finally ensured that restaurants […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[1049,3263,612,566,3275],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2838242"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2838242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2838242\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2838242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2838242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}