Why Facts Matter in Campaigning

As a communications agency, we’re in the business of propaganda, creating powerful messages designed to shift opinion and behaviour in the required direction. With that mission comes responsibility. It’s important that we make our message fact-driven. However tempting it is to bend the truth to our convenience in order to achieve results, it’s more important than ever that we base our messaging on solid data and facts.

Of course, there are grey areas where we can have discussions and that are open to interpretation, but as we’re all aware, we are living in a media environment where the whole concept of truth and fiction is being challenged.

There are a number of areas where this is most acute, and which have become inextricably interwoven

Migration, Housing, Education and Health

For example, large swathes of the population have accepted a narrative that frames refugees and asylum seekers as an intolerable burden on social infrastructure and the economy. The prevailing messaging on much of social media (and on the street) goes, is that if we ‘stop the boats’, then our housing, health and educational crisis will be addressed. This simple message has been highly effective as propaganda, but is it borne out by fact? There is some urgency to this answer as neither government nor the official opposition are doing much to counter it and are mostly mirroring the instigators of this narrative, Reform. 

Bad actors are jumping into the grey areas and dominating social media spaces that then spill out onto the street. Their negative messaging becomes ‘fact’ and lodged in people’s minds. In their messaging, migration offers a simple excuse for fundamental problems with the economy and infrastructure of the UK.

We’ve created a series of factual posts to highlight some of the biggest non-facts that are dominating the social media landscape. Are there any other facts and figures that you’d like to see converted into simple easgraphics?