On Europe Day, we’re publishing a new messaging guide to help bring the EU slogan, ‘united in diversity’, to life.
No matter our differences, most of us want to live in a place where we have the same opportunities to live fulfilling lives. We are diverse in things like who we love or pray to, the colour of our skin, or our gender. We are united by our common humanity.
But today political movements with authoritarian agendas, often with backing from Russia and the US far-right, are trying to use our differences to divide us. They spread lies about marginalised groups as well as the organisations and institutions that promote progress. Often this is part of a strategy to gain or maintain political power.
Those of us promoting equality are having a difficult time holding on to the progress we’ve made, let alone make new advances. And part of this is down to the messages we use to encourage public audiences to support our causes. Currently, we tend to talk in a way that is either ineffective or counterproductive, for example by stimulating sympathy instead of empathy, or using statistics in the expectation that this will make our audience care.
That’s why we’ve published a new messaging guide: 'How to message on the rights of people from marginalised groups'.
The guide:
- Highlights the most common messaging mistakes you might be making when talking to a public audience,
- Explains why these bad habits don't work or even backfire and
- Tells you what to do instead.
