5 Understanding audiences

In Prochaska & DiClemente’s Stages of Change Model, also known as the transtheoretical model of the stages of change, individuals progress through several phases.

First, in the ‘pre-contemplation stage’, we are not even considering change. Next, during ‘contemplation’, we recognise a problem and start thinking about solving it, but haven’t committed to action. In the ‘preparation stage’, we are exploring taking action soon and may begin making small changes to prepare. The ‘action stage’ involves actively changing our thoughts or behaviour. During ‘maintenance’, individuals work to sustain the new behaviour over the long term and prevent backsliding. Finally, there is either ‘relapse’ or ‘termination’, where the new behaviour faces challenges in sustainability, or it is so fully integrated that individuals are confident they won’t return to their old behaviour.

This model is often used for public health interventions (e.g. smoking cessation or healthier eating). But it’s useful for all elements of public interest communication, irrespective of the topic. Where our audiences sit on the stages of this change model helps us think about what sorts of messages they might need to move them into the next stage. According to this model, it is usually possible to advance an audience from one stage to the next. But it is difficult or impossible to move them two or more stages, e.g. from a lack of awareness to a specific behaviour. The full journey usually takes time and several interventions.

This model allows us to group our audiences (and our outcomes) into categories which will best address people at different phases of engagement.

• Is our audience oblivious to our issue?
• Is our audience aware of the issue but unwilling to act?
• Are they aware and willing, but don’t know how to act?

Depending on where our audiences sit on this change model, it’s worth mapping them out and thinking about different messages we might use for different groups of people.

This mapping will also help us identify the type of change we need to see. If audiences don’t know about our issue, do we need to educate them? Is our goal to raise awareness or increase knowledge? If our audiences are aware of our issue but unwilling to act, should we try to persuade them why acting on our issue is important? Or should we accept certain things we might not be able to change? If our audiences want to act but don’t know how, can we provide them with simple ways of making their voice heard, or other actions they can take to ensure they are part of the change effort? Take some time to map audiences to understand where they currently sit on this model, and how we can realistically move them to the next stage.

Activity 5

Thinking about the stages of change our audiences might sit at, list some audiences you think might be at each stage of change.

For example, if we want the public to understand some aspect of climate transition better (for example, the role of insulation, or heat-pumps), and to make demands of their governments, what sorts of people would you expect to see at each stage of change?

Example 5

Audiences that might be unaware that climate change is urgent might be older, because they might engage less with social media content that tells them of the urgency. Other audiences might not believe in climate change or have a particularly political viewpoint. Which of these two audiences are we more likely to be able to move? Probably older audiences, by making our communication visible to them outside of social media. Audiences that might know climate change is urgent, but are unsure how to act might be younger. They might simply need more information to help them understand how to act: how to use their voice or access their political leaders. Audiences that might already be acting are our existing audiences. We might decide we don’t need to communicate with them because they are acting already, and communicating with them would be an unnecessary use of our resources. In this way, we can understand how best to spend our resources, and what sorts of messages will be needed for different people.