Politicians - Focused Messages or Cynicism?

One of the key areas where audience is crucial is in politics. Trying to get elected to any office is a question of appealing to wide variety of voters, with different interests, cares and hot buttons. Politicians spend huge amounts of money on consultants and pollsters trying to figure out what messages will appeal to different categories of voters. Many critics see this as cynicism. Although probably true for some office-seekers – not to mention office-holders - it is merely an extreme form of the basic rule of audiences that I mentioned in yesterday’s post: put yourself in the audience’s shoes.

A politician deals with a wide variety of subjects and must be able to discuss all of them. When speaking to union leaders it is natural that he focus on subjects of concern to them, which are likely to be different from those he or she would bring up to university students or farmers.

That said, selecting which of your many messages to highlight is not the same as changing your position depending on whom you are talking to. Whether you are running for office or just working in one, consistency of message is crucial to building trust.

If you understand your audiences (plural!!) very well, it is sometimes possible to use the same words but send different messages to different audiences. An interesting example of this is the way US presidential-candidate Mitt Romney has dealt with his religion: Mormonism. Christian evangelicals have a heavy influence in the early Republican primaries, and many of them are deeply sceptical of Mormonism; they aren’t necessarily sure what it is but it sure looks heretical to a lot of them. He spoke specifically on the subject in December 2007, and carefully chose a number of expressions that could be interpreted differently by two of his key audiences: Christian evangelicals and other Mormons.

For example, he says he believes in Jesus Christ as his personal saviour. Good start, that certainly sounds right to both audiences. He points out that when he is alone in his hotel room while on the road he reads the Gideon Bible there. Message to evangelicals: “I read the same scriptures as you – I believe in what you believe in”. He doesn’t mention that he also reads the Book of Mormon, something that would raise eyebrows amongst evangelicals but which his Mormon audience takes for granted.

Does this sort of verbal legerdemain work? Time will tell if it does for Mitt Romney (so far the results don’t look blessed by the angels). What about for you? Generally speaking the answer lies in the sincerity of the emotion behind the hair-splitting. Listeners are generally very good at recognizing sincerity . . . and insincerity. If they feel you are trying to trick them, any positive message you may have will be swamped by resentment.

Of course, once you learn to fake sincerity, you’ve got it made. How good a fake do you think you are? For most of us, honesty is still the best policy.

All of this brings up the subject how to figure out what your message is for different audiences. We’ll look at that next time.