Worksheet: Message development
Friday, February 02, 2024A resource to help advocates practice developing core components of a message and combining them into a cohesive statement.
Media advocacy worksheet: Overall strategy
Friday, February 02, 2024Before trying to get media attention for the issue you are working on — or determining what your message is going to be — you and your coalition need to have clarity in your overall advocacy goals, as well as the steps you will take to achieve them. Answering the questions in this worksheet will help you identify what information you need to move forward and what immediate steps you need to take.
Layers of strategy
Friday, February 02, 2024This document outlines BMSG’s four-stage approach to media advocacy planning, a process we call the layers of strategy. It follows the idea that message should never be first or foremost. Rather, the first and most important stage involves developing an overall strategy tied to an advocacy campaign’s specific policy goal. Media, message and media access strategies follow.
Caregiver Narrative Project: Caregiving as an act of resistance and a common good
Monday, October 16, 2023Caregiving — both paid and unpaid — is critical to the function of our society. But how does the public perceive this vital act? Berkeley Media Studies Group investigated narratives surrounding caregiving in collaboration with the California Work & Family Coalition, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Pro- and anti-tax framing in news articles about California sugar-sweetened beverage tax campaigns from 2014-2018
Friday, September 08, 2023To learn how four successful California campaigns appeared in the news, and to identify overarching patterns across multiple campaigns, BMSG and partners evaluated news coverage to compare how both supportive and oppositional messages characterized SSB taxes while communities were proposing, passing, and implementing their groundbreaking policies. Our results can inform advocates and community members as they make the case for taxes on sugary drinks.
Equity in action: Assessing the role of community in declarations of racism as a public health crisis
Friday, August 25, 2023What role did community base-building organizations (CBOs) play in advancing declarations of racism as a public health crisis? And how were those declarations were covered in the media? In this brief, we answer those questions and present additional findings from a series of surveys, Learning Circles, and media analyses designed by The Praxis Project and Berkeley Media Studies Group.
‘Those who need it the most’: Equity framing in 2021 U.S. print news about food assistance
Thursday, August 10, 2023Food assistance has been part of the U.S. social safety net for decades, although not without controversy over who should receive benefits and in what form. These issues became even more significant with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many Americans relied on food assistance. In this analysis BMSG researchers and partners examined how, if at all, news coverage of food assistance during the second year of the pandemic framed racial and health equity, and the possible implications of this framing for narrative change going forward.
We keep each other safe: An interactive communications guide about reducing and preventing gun violence
Wednesday, August 02, 2023The following resource is intended to support advocates in developing local campaigns and communication strategies to: share information about different options available to reduce harm from guns; inspire needed community conversations; and empower survivors.
The news about rollover protective structures: Findings from an analysis of news from Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri
Monday, May 22, 2023Rollover protective structures (ROPS) can prevent fatal tractor overturns, a leading cause of death among farmers. Despite proven success, ROPS — and programs to make them more widely available to farmers — are all but absent from news coverage in key agricultural states, a news analysis, published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, found.
Connecting housing justice, health, and journalism: A guide for Bay Area news reporters
Wednesday, May 17, 2023Today’s housing climate is the result of centuries of history, policies, and practices. To move forward, we must acknowledge the past and how it shapes our lives today. Read more on how journalists can uncover the roots of housing and health inequities and elevate solutions for social justice, in this new guide from the Council of Community Housing Organizations, the Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative, and BMSG.