Educators will use different words and phrases to describe the central messages that must be communicated during voter education. They may discuss the "central theme" of the programme, for example, or the "slogans" of the voter education campaign. Mainly, these are part of a set of educational messages that must be communicated to and absorbed by the target constituency.
These messages may be encapsulations of the general knowledge that citizens must have in order to participate fully in a democracy, whether in elections or in other civic or political activities, or in the general ebb and flow of a pluralist society in which they are required to assist in decision making and to construct their own future.
As messages, they may make people aware of deficiencies in skills that they have to overcome. As a result of this awareness they may then appear to provide an indication of the likely direction of an educational programme that takes into account behaviour, attitudes, and knowledge. But educators who rely too heavily on the creation of educational messages to the detriment of a set of educational objectives are likely to overlook the affective and skill components of an educational programme in favour of the cognitive.
Because educational messages are important in guiding the programme, and because they are also available as explicit and more easily understandable descriptions of what is intended than objective statements for non-educators, it is essential that care be taken in the drafting and development:
- Ensure that there is a direct relationship between the educational needs that have been described and the message that is prepared. If this is not done, it is highly likely that time and energy will be wasted constructing programmes to meet needs that have no significance for the majority of the target audience, no matter how much significance they may have for the educator.
- Construct these messages in such a way that they will have the support of stakeholder groups. and;
- Test them in order to ensure that they do indeed meet the needs of the educational programme and of the citizens that the education programme intends to serve.
From Needs Statement to Message
Needs statements tend to be expressed in terms of the gap between the ideal and the actual. As a result, there are likely to be a whole range of statements. Educators may, in the first place, have to separate out those statements that relate to needs that cannot be met by educational interventions, or they may have to rephrase these so they are capable of educational intervention.
Having done this, educators will then be in a position to group and categorise the list of needs and, through a process of sifting and sorting, to establish the possibility of characterising the educational needs into a series of conceptual requirements. This series of conceptual requirements may enable the educator to write down a set of statements relating to messages that the target audience could assimilate. This is a task that is more art than science, and it is for this reason that educators will want to consider the development of messages in collaboration with others experienced in these matters.
The Role of Statutory Bodies
The election authority and other statutory bodies are likely to have an opinion about the messages that must be communicated by the educational programme. Beyond the content of these messages, they are also likely to be concerned with the accuracy and consistency and the mutually-reinforcing nature of the messages, so as to ensure that voters are truly informed and not misinformed or confused. Their opinions may find their way into any Terms of Reference or Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) document that is distributed to all organisations engaged in voter education activities, either independently or through some sort of strategic partnership, for example between the election authority and the civil society sector. These opinions are also likely to be reflected in requests for competitive bids, or tenders, through which service providers will be selected and contracted.
Where general civic education is intended, the messages may be linked to particular national slogans or to particular social issues or the constitution. Where voter education is intended, the messages are likely to be linked again to particular concepts, such as the secrecy of the vote, or to a particular assumption about the voting population.
Having an initial opinion - which is unlikely to change unless educators are able to marshal good information in favour of changes - is perhaps as important as the fact that these same statutory bodies will have an opinion of the final set of messages. Their perception of the programme and of its success will be coloured by the professionalism with which the message statements are crafted, and whether these reflect their own opinions.
Because statutory authorities often have to provide resources – especially money – and access to citizens, their belief in the programme is essential. There are circumstances in non-democratic societies, however, in which the statutory authorities are not considered a primary locus of authority and support for voter education programmes. There may even be circumstances in which there are competitive programmes in the field. In such circumstances, messages will obviously be developed apart from the authorities. They may even be developed as an antithesis to government messages.
In other instances, the national election management authority may have a legal mandate to conduct voter education and may take a leading role in the formation of strategic partnerships. They may also have a role in assessing, accepting, and supporting the messages of the voter education programme. In support of these messages, they may also give consideration to the alignment of other social programmes to ensure congruence between these and the educational intervention.
The Role of Target Groups
It is impossible to bring every learner into contact with the educator team while developing a set of messages. It is essential, however, to consider ways in which educators could understand the impact of these messages on learners. Because message statements are regularly used as slogans in advertising, or as statements to mobilise support for the programme from potential organisational participants, and because they will form the basis of materials development, educators will want to discuss them with groups from the target audience. Such groups may be randomly selected, in the same manner as focus groups, and the potential messages could be discussed with them. Contact may also be made with organisations that are likely to deliver groups of learners during the programme. For more on the educational needs of target audiences see Target Groups, Audiences, and Constituencies.
These organisations will have a relationship with learners that they will want to protect and the discussion of messages will be of utmost importance to them. Indeed, it may be that they will want to ensure that the programme deals with messages that have not yet been considered, or they may want to exclude certain messages altogether. For example, commercial interests that have opted to provide voter education to their employees may have a concern about possible discussions linking the topic of voting and democracy in the workplace or industrial decision making. Or they may prefer that messages place a greater emphasis on the responsibility of citizens rather than about rights.
It may not be possible to meet all the expectations of those through whom the programme will go to reach learners. But in a national programme, it may be possible to develop a set of messages that has general currency, leaving more specialised messages, such as they are, to the organisations themselves.
The Role of Educator Groups
Advocating a facilitating approach in which others take some responsibility for messages does not presuppose an abdication on the part of educators. Indeed, the technical assistance that such groups or individuals will provide is essential. They are the ones who will be able to consider the relationship between programme objectives, messages, and "educability." They will be the ones who investigate the relationship between expressed needs and the creation of message statements.
In particular, they will have to take responsibility for these messages once the programme is initiated, and in this regard they will have to be able to explain them to others and communicate them to those who deliver services and materials.
Testing
Once a set of messages has been developed, it will be important to test them. Testing messages is designed to establish:
- to what extent they are clear and unambiguous,
- to what extent they are engaging, and;
- to what extent they can be understood by learners and communicated by educators.
Where the messages have been developed in one language, which is likely in most cases, it will be essential to determine whether the concepts described translate. This translation will be required if materials are to be produced. But it will also happen spontaneously when learners of a different native language are exposed to the message. It will be necessary to test to determine whether this spontaneous translation results in a similar concept or in something quite different.
Finally, testing will ensure that the message statements are stripped to their bare essentials, both in the simple communication of the message itself (e.g., "Your Vote Counts") and in the standard description of this message.
Testing can be done in a number of ways. In the first place, discussions with statutory authorities, educators, and target groups will provide the first round of testing. Focus groups will provide another. But educators will want to test the messages through a series of limited pilot educational events. Such events will have to be strictly controlled. In some cases, it is impossible to conduct pilot events in educational interventions because "the cat is out of the bag", so to speak, from the first event and because it is unlikely that the educator will get a chance to correct any errors that may occur.
So testing often takes place with a group that is not naive (i.e., they have been asked to be part of the test and are, therefore, self-conscious about their participation) and, therefore, not entirely representative of the actual target. Nevertheless, gross errors are likely to be spotted.
Message Document
Once the messages have been accepted and tested, a document needs to be developed that will confirm them and make them available to all interested parties in the same form and with the same content. Variations in draft documents can have an impact on sceptical parties, and the reissue of a draft instead of the agreed form can be quite problematic.
