The visual element in print or television.
Quotes and clips are the elements over which you have the most influence because they are your words (or SOCKOs). Remember that the average length of a clip on a television or radio news in controversial situations is about 8 seconds. Public broadcasters and documentary producers may use longer clips; tabloid television and rock radio stations may use shorter clips.
As you frame your messages you must think in mediagenic terms and you must be brief. If you are not thinking in terms of quotes, headlines etc. your message will not be in a format that is useful to the reporter. The reporter is going to have to convert your message into a news format, and there’s no guarantee your message will survive intact. You must deliver your message in a format the audience can recognize and make use of. The less it is edited or modified, the better.
The more you can visualize your objectives in real, human, behavioural terms, the more you will achieve them. You want the reporter to use your clip and write the story from your perspective. You want the reporter’s audience at home to see the world the way you do and act in a certain way. You must define these behaviours very clearly to achieve your objective. Now is the time to write out exactly what you want the listeners, readers and viewers of your news story to do and visualize them doing it.
Now that we have defined a SOCKO and given it form — an iceberg — it’s time to give it some substance, to put some meat on its bones so that you can begin to see how the SOCKO system can work for you and your organization.
Think about your three most important issues. These are the issues you really want reporters and the world to know about you, your corporation, its policies, organization, hopes, goals and aspirations. They could also be the issues the world is dying to find out about you, whether you like it or not!
These topics or issues take the form of brief headings. Typical issues might be funding, compliance, investor confidence, ethics, health, safety and so on. This is a perfect opportunity for you to take stock of what is really important to you and your organization.
The format to follow is: ISSUESOCKODISCUSSION. The issues are designed to do no more than trigger stimulus response in your message delivery. They need to be general enough so that your SOCKO can address any number of specific questions concerning that issue.
It doesn’t matter if a question dealing with costs is phrased to ask if it is too expensive, or how you are going to pay for it, or even who will pay for it. Your cost ISSUE should contain a generic SOCKO that can respond to many of the questions that deal with cost. One good SOCKO happens to address many questions that might be asked. That doesn’t mean you only need one SOCKO — you need many. But it does mean that you get multiple use out of the SOCKOs you have. Many large organizations rely heavily on a “question and answer” format but I prefer SOCKOs. There are an endless number of ways to phrase questions and thus an endless set of answers to prepare. I’d rather make multiple use SOCKOs than start a Q & A project that, by definition, never ends.
A great SOCKO just may be the answer to 50 questions you might be asked. But, a Q & A sheet has only one answer per question. With SOCKOs, you use versions of them over and over again. I say versions because you don’t want to sound scripted.
Qs & As are like a “round” in music. The most famous round is probably “row, row, row your boat.” Each person says the same thing, at the same time in the round, with the same notes, over and over again. It both sounds and is repetitive. A Bach “fugue,” however, has several variations. The composer has some choice of when to come in, on what note and with what sequence of notes. It still has structure, but a fugue generates and sustains more interest than a round.
The kind of repetition you want is the kind Shakespeare used—emphatic, clear and powerful repetition, not redundant repetition.
Once you’ve identified your ISSUE, you should decide which is the most important 10% of the information about which you want to tell the world. This is your SOCKO.
After that you can add four or five supporting discussion points that you can use to expand your answer when you respond to follow up questions. This way you make sure you have enough material to present and defend your case, no matter how rigorous the interrogation. It might help if you also think of your SOCKOs as the raw material of news.
Framing
Framing is important because it places your message in context. If you don’t care enough about your message to place it in context, don’t be surprised if reporters choose the context for you. When people in the public eye complain that they have been misquoted in the media, what they usually mean is that their words have been taken out of context.
So set your own frame.
Imagine anchoring yourself in the graphic frame in this book and be sure not to let anyone pull you out. You aren’t in total control here because the people receiving your message may have their own frames, or modify yours based on their personal experiences. You may say the glass is half full while they are convinced it is half empty.
Social scientists tell us that the person or group that sets a valid frame first on any given issue has a tremendous advantage over those who try to do so later. It is very hard to unframe a message, unspin it, put the genie back in the bottle or the toothpaste back in the tube. As one academic put it: “It’s hard to unscare people.”
Parents know that going, “Boo!” is the easy part, but consoling a scared toddler can be tough.
So make your message powerful and clear and get it out early and often and you will always be ahead of your adversaries.
Your message can also be a “flag” or signal to the audience that you are worth listening to and your issue is worth paying attention to. The signal potential of a message involves a subliminal communication that you and your message are more important than all the other things competing for the attention of the recipient that day. Considering the “all news” formats of many radio and TV stations and the thousands of other distractions in a day, you have to work hard for a share of the news consumers’ minds. SOCKOs will help you do just that.
Messages have to compete to survive. Your message may signal that this issue or event is a harbinger of things to come. It’s got “legs” and will be around for a while. That can be good or bad, depending on the issue and the side you’re on, but that’s how the system works.
Amplification helps explain how some minor issues can capture media attention, and how an issue moves between and among various players in society, such as lawyers, clergy, activists and others. The issue changes during this journey and your management of the issue must change also. I liken the journey that an issue takes through the various players in society
