FrameWorks Institute

We’ve all seen campaign ads working to persuade people to quit smoking or donate blood—they work similarly to how a company persuades people to buy its brand of soap or shoes. And to be clear, behavior change campaigns are an important part of advocacy strategy. AND—focusing on individual choices alone can actually interfere with bigger discussions about the structural factors behind social issues and what we can do together to solve it. For example, the video below shows what it means to shift away from individualism and toward structural thinking. The speaker points to the role of social isolation and discrimination as a driver of their smoking, and they say that “tobacco companies aggressively market to LGBTQ+ communities,” explicitly calling attention to some of the structural factors at play. By addressing these structural factors, policy solutions—such as regulations on advertising—can be part of the solution, going beyond individual decisions. VIDEO: https://lnkd.in/e4RKHjWQ

The 2025 Annual Data Release from County Health Rankings & Roadmaps is here! Learn how you can take action to improve your community’s health: https://lnkd.in/eSSpYst #CountyHealth

Tune in on Wednesday, March 26th at 3:05 p.m. ET as FrameWorks’ Julie Sweetland, PhD, Dr. J. Nadine Gracia from Trust for America's Health, and Allyn Brooks-LaSure from RWJF share research-informed insights on effectively communicating about health equity in today’s environment at Insights to Practice. Insights to Practice is a no-cost, half-day virtual conference hosted by the Public Health Communications Collaborative (PHCC) that will bring together leading public health practitioners and professionals from across the country to explore the latest research and perspectives critical to advancing public health communications in the months and years ahead.? REGISTER HERE: https://lnkd.in/eDnVEJZJ

Our Pool Fellowship for Health continued last week with another wonderful visit from Nico Connolly, Principal Strategist at FrameWorks Institute. Decades of social science research shows us that people rely on deeply-held assumptions, worldviews, and mental shortcuts to make sense of social issues. We know that some of these ways of thinking are more helpful than others in how we see and support solutions. Nico's work allows Pool Fellows to understand FrameWorks’ theoretical and methodological approach to framing, learn what frames to use, which to avoid, and why. Fellows practiced different framing lenses and applied them to a variety of different topic areas such as youth engagement and community development, among other areas. Thank you, Nico, for joining us! ? Photo Property of Peter Keady/PK3Photography

“The system is rigged” mindset is not going anywhere. It’s time to start—or double down on—engaging with it. Whether we’re talking about the healthcare system, the legal system, the economic system, racial justice, the economy, or any other social issue, people widely rely on this way of thinking to draw all kinds of conclusions. Some productive, and lead to productive critiques of power. Some harmful, and lead to the scapegoating or villainizing of entire groups of people. Our research shows that how we frame these conversations makes a big difference in terms of the stories people tell about what’s going wrong, and what can be done to fix it. In our latest video series on YouTube and Instagram, we explore how the mindset works, the opportunities and dangers it poses, and how progressives can shape what it means to say that “the system is rigged” in our society. These tips can help you navigate conversations about rigged systems, reduce fatalism, and remind people that systemic change is possible. The contest over this narrative might be the most important cultural and political terrain of our time. Let’s keep talking about it. WATCH THE VIDEO SERIES HERE: https://lnkd.in/e9uk2rEn

When we use numbers to convince people that the problem exists, hoping one statistic will shift them from apathy to action, we often hurt our cause. Severe statistics can make people believe the world is chaotic and out of our control, where nature or fate governs, and human actions don’t matter. For example, if someone were to say that a city's poverty rate increased by 10%, people might immediately default to blaming individuals for not working hard enough or securing good enough jobs. However, this would ignore important factors like policy actions or systemic forces—such as gentrification or lack of affordable housing, childcare, or transportation—that could be contributing. Make sure that your numbers come with a clear explanation. Check out more tips on how to use numbers in your storytelling: https://lnkd.in/gCpnCYpi

ICYMI: Check out the recap from Communicating Now: Strategic Framing for Health Justice. FrameWorks’ Dr. Julie Sweetland and Dr. Carmen Nevarez from PHI’s Center for Health Leadership & Impact discussed how to lead productive conversations about health justice amidst efforts to suppress them. With troubling rhetoric rapidly transforming into unsound, unsupported, and unjust policies, reframing the public conversation around justice in health has never been more urgent. WATCH HERE: https://lnkd.in/eWvdYHTP

The pace of politics and change feels immensely challenging. It’s heavy and hard to figure out what is going on, let alone how to navigate our current context. This is deeply unsettling for those in the social change field, especially for people like me who study the information environment and try to help those working for justice advance their ideas. At the FrameWorks Institute, we’re trying to be helpful by lifting up research we’ve done to help partners understand and respond to the current moment. I recently wrote a piece in The Contrarian, about how communicators are invoking the system is rigged mindset. (link below) The system is rigged mindset – the idea that there are a powerful few manipulating systems for their advantage and to the detriment of everyone else – is laden with traps and dangers; it can take people in some pretty dart, xenophobic, and reactionary places. But I am convinced that avoiding this powerful mindset cedes what is maybe the most important cultural terrain of our time. Here’s a few things to consider about the system is rigged mindset: 1. A strong majority, or 70% of Americans—including 73% of Republicans and 65% of Democrats—believe that “the system is rigged.” This finding is part of a nationally-representative study of more than 35,000 Americans that we’ve been conducting since August 2020. 2. For the significant majority of Americans who do not feel that the status quo works for them, messages about restoring norms fall flat. Telling them the system is not rigged or that we just need to make some tweaks and changes around the edges only makes people dig in further. 3. Meanwhile, those working against justice and inclusion are taking full advantage of the “rigged” narrative, and are using it to legitimize moves that have a negative effect on our government and justice system's ability to create a fair society where everyone can be healthy and well.?? So what's the upshot for those trying to communicate effectively in our current information environment? There are ways we can invoke system is rigged thinking to advance the causes that drive positive change. We must first accept the views of the American public as real (the system IS rigged!), and get serious about speaking to them. Then we need to be specific about how the deck is being stacked against the vast majority of people in this county - and why. The next step is to offer reforms that match the scope of the problem–to make it clear how we can redesign the system so that it does what we need it to and works as we need it to work. Nat

We’re HIRING! FrameWorks is looking for a Project Manager to support our Health Justice program area. We are committed to equity, diversity, and inclusion. Interested individuals who are BIPOC, women, persons with disabilities, and LGBTQIA+ are strongly encouraged to apply. Click here to read the full description and learn more about how to apply: https://lnkd.in/eMpAsdbR

Just like words, images play an important role in the messages we send about social issues. We are often drawn toward close-up photos of individuals because human faces trigger a strong response in our brains. But what if we used the power of images to help people better understand an issue? We can do this by considering the bigger story the picture is telling. For example, imagine we’re talking about health. The image on slide 2 depicts a child deciding what to eat without any context, playing into the assumption that being healthy = making healthy choices. The image on slide 3 paints a bigger picture of health, illustrating the ways that our environments can shape what food choices we have access to. When our images help people zoom out, we make it easier to understand and support changes to our systems, not just changes in people's choices. Check out our Fast Frames episode on using visuals to inspire big-picture thinking: https://lnkd.in/e9WeXqd2