At this point, you may be wondering how in the world people can be mobilized to pay attention, to think about and to act in the face of injustice or threatening information.
Although the specifics are highly dependent on the injustices being addressed and the audiences in question (i.e., the context of the organization and what they are trying to change is critically important to consider), here are some examples of how the dynamics of social justice could be taken into consideration when trying to shift perceptions, attitudes and behaviors:
- When trying to shift attitudes, perceptions and behaviors using messaging, it is imperative that the language used does not perpetuate victim derogation, stereotyping or distancing. An example might involve trying to increase awareness of people’s vulnerability to accidents involving talking or texting while driving. The language used would need to highlight the fact that such accidents are not caused by careless people (i.e., making it easy for people to say I am not careless, so that won’t happen to me) but instead by people who had a momentary lapse in their vigilance (i.e., which everyone can say they have experienced).
- People need to understand exactly what action they should take to explicitly address the injustice you have asked them to think about
- Under no circumstance should people be guilted into action – it will not work. Guilt is much too threatening and people will just focus their attention elsewhere (i.e., they will cognitively tune out or change the channel)
- Confirm for people who have taken action that their efforts have reduced suffering/injustice (i.e., you acted this way and this is the result)
Changing perceptions, attitudes and behaviors that relate to concerns about social justice is a challenge. But with careful consideration of the motivators and barriers to change as well as the audiences in question, change is certainly possible.
This concludes my mini series on social justice. For those readers who work in sectors where social justice concerns come into play, I hope this series has given you some food for thought into the cognitions and motivations of your audiences. Awareness of the dynamics of this theory and the consequences it can have on how your messaging is received (or not!) by your audiences can be quite significant – it can be the difference between mobilizing people or having them turn away and shut down.
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Nice post, I quite enjoyed reading it. “this series has given us some food for thought into the cognitions and motivations of our audiences.” by all means
Thank you!