Sweltering August is upon us, and with it comes sports reporters sweating through football training camps as much as the gridiron competitors – some writing about the marvels of “two-way players,” those athletes who play both offense and defense. It’s an exhausting combination requiring conditioning and agility.
It is also becoming the reality for effective communicators in 2018, who frequently are called upon to use both offensive and defensive skill sets when they are carrying out a messaging campaign. Not only does this show positive results when it comes to modern challenges posed by social media platforms being flooded with misinformation or harmful information, it also has proven effective as a strategy for addressing the racial divisions surrounding Confederate-era statues in the south.
But first, the social media side …
Where in previous eras, a bad story or news cycle called for a pushback or clarification or refutation of the negative stories, that’s no longer enough. Because of the echo chambers and reach of social media platforms – which much of the time are driving these harmful narratives, communications strategists are flexing their own “two-way” muscles, and playing both offense and defense at once.
One arm of the campaign takes apart the harmful information and dispels or contextualizes the narrative out there, while being careful to not spread the information they’re seeking to vanquish.
The other arm hits the gas pedal when it comes to counternarratives, pushing positive stories out to social media channels through a combination of paid advertising and “influencer engagement” where highly-visible online personalities spread unrelated, positive stories and examples on behalf of a campaign or candidate.
As Michael Scherer of the Washington Post laid out in an examination of how some Democratic campaigns are updating their playbook, the “play offense” approach is gaining momentum:
This strategy is playing out on the Republican side as well, and it’s frequently deployed via private sector approaches for our business partners where we refer to it sometimes as “boost and blunt”: weaken the negative story as necessary, while also making sure to broadcast from high and low the positive story you are seeking to tell. Combine them where possible, but keep playing offense and defense as much as possible.
In today’s constant churn of information where barely any story demonstrates “stickiness” that lasts for more than a day, the important thing is to continue feeding the information platforms with well-conceived information, smartly distributed to the right audiences, in a way that delivers the messages you need at any given time. Weaken the bad information by steadily undercutting its validity or prominence, while also highlighting the stories you want to tell independent of any headwinds you may be facing.
It was difficult not to think of this communications approach this past weekend as the Unite the Right rally headed to Washington, D.C., and John Eligon wrote of his trips through the American south for the New York Times this weekend. He interviewed several residents of Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, and Mississippi about the Confederate-era Americans in the streets and parks of their hometowns, raising questions of racism and the lingering tensions over slavery in the south. Asked about if these statues and obelisks were honoring an inhumane and immoral practice, a man named Gordon Cotton explained the mindset of many in the south succinctly: “Looking back 150, 200 years ago, it was a way of life,” he says. “It may not have been right, but it was the way of life at the time.”
This debate is far from resolved and the tensions, it seems, coming more to the surface as we pass the one-year mark from last year’s tragic racial confrontation between white supremacists and civic-minded residents in Charlottesville, Va.
But one notable southern city has decided to incorporate the “play offense, not just defense” mindset into how it handles the divisive concrete and steel icons from previous generations. Richmond has decided to address its own complicated racial past, not by starting a process of removing the memorials to a flawed history – but by adding positive context that reflects how far it has come in recent decades. It’s improvement and messaging through addition, as opposed to merely subtraction.
As Time Magazine reported last year:
This is something for cities, towns and all of us to consider. While it is understandable to get into a defensive crouch and look into addressing the true and problematic claims made against you by simply removing them or rebutting them, there is also serious value in reminding the public of the goals and ideals and ‘brand’ that you must continually reinforce. Yes, Richmond can say, “that is who we were over a century ago, we cannot attempt to deny it, but look at who we are now, what we’ve evolved to become, and how we can demonstrate our priorities in the 21st century.”
The point here is that whether you are a political candidate, a city, or a corporation, you own your story and you must keep control over it – both by protecting it from external attacks, but also at the same time to push out some true and meaningful positive stories that you know the public will respond to.
The marketplace of ideas is chockablock and complex in 2018, but as you fend off threats and attacks, it’s critical to remember to keep the shelves stocked with the stories and messages that you believe solidify your core identity to the general public.
Matthew Felling (@matthewfelling) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a former print/TV/radio journalist, media critic, and U.S. Senate communications director, now serving as a public affairs and crisis consultant with Burson-Marsteller in Washington.
