The importance of building a climate of public opinion in which policy change becomes possible (Pym, 1974) has already been noted. The public can exert coercive power over policy issues (through elections), but politicians fears of losing public support may also keep unpopular issues from ever entering the policy agenda. TSOs may attempt to change public attitudes in order to gain support for their campaigns, but, like politicians, they may also need to respond to public attitudes, in order to maximise public support for their work.
There has been considerable research on public attitudes to poverty in the UK. Castell and Thompson (2007, pvi) conclude that the public remain “a long way from supporting a UK anti poverty agenda”. In their research, they identify a number of reasons why there may be limited public support for anti-poverty policy in the UK:
1) “The word ‘poverty’ gives rise to the wrong associations: international issues, absolute rather than relative poverty, and historical associations.”
Castell and Thompson (2007, pvi)
Chapter 1 discussed different definitions of poverty used in determining child poverty rates, including both relative and absolute measures. Castell and Thompson found that many members of the public believe in an absolute (over relative) definition of poverty.
In doing so, international and historical wealth comparisons may be drawn, which would indicate low levels of ‘poverty’ in the UK. For this reason, many members of the public may find it difficult to believe in poverty in the UK.
2) “The charity and NGO (non-governmental organisation) sector is imagined to speak from a ‘big tent’ model of the welfare state, with a no-strings attached model of help for the poor. The public feel very wary of offering more help to anyone, in case they are ‘taken for a ride’ by freeloaders.”
(Castell and Thompson, 2007, pvi)
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The idea of households on low incomes as freeloaders or ‘scroungers’ is a very familiar one. Deeply connected to the idea of deserving and undeserving poor, this attitude may make it difficult to campaign for greater support for low income households, and perhaps in particular, workless households.
3) “Long-term economic stability in the UK means the public tend to feel there is no excuse for poverty; it is the result of bad choices and wrong priorities, and therefore not a subject for public help.”
(Castell and Thompson, 2007, pvi)
Given the current economic climate, it is interesting to note that in 2007 the authors found that ‘long term economic stability’ has affected attitudes towards UK poverty.
More recent findings (reported in Hanley (2009)) indicate that as job insecurity and personal financial pressures grow, and poverty becomes concordantly ‘closer’ to many people, support for measures to help low income households grows, as does willingness to discuss the causes of and solutions to poverty. However, this situation may not last outside of times of economic difficulty.
4) “The public believe that the social contract is growing weaker, and that social relations within society are breaking down due to antisocial behaviour; the real problem is seen as ‘emotional’ poverty, not lack of physical or concrete
resources.”
Castell and Thompson (2007, pvi)
Finally, campaign groups may have to contest against public attitudes that the key social problems are ‘emotional’ rather than ‘material’. For organisations campaigning for reforms to lift people out of relative low income poverty, this may directly contradict their approach.
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However, whilst these may be common attitudes towards UK poverty, they are not universal. The general public is not one homogeneous mass, with the same attitudes throughout. Using cluster analysis of quantitative survey data, Bamfield and Horton (2009), identified four groups of attitudes towards poverty in the UK. These groups were:
‘Traditional egalitarians’ who “take positions on all statements akin to those
conventionally associated with egalitarianism (espousing ‘negative’ sentiments about those at the top of the income spectrum and ‘positive’ sentiments about those experiencing poverty, and supporting ‘equalising’ policy measures at both top and bottom)”.
‘Traditional free-marketeers’ who take “positions on all statements akin to those traditionally associated with inegalitarian agendas, such as ‘economic liberalism’ or
‘libertarianism’”.
‘The angry middle’ “shares with traditional egalitarians negative attitudes towards those at the top of the income spectrum and a desire to tackle inequality at the top, but also shares with traditional free-marketeers negative attitudes towards those experiencing poverty and an opposition to tackling inequality at the bottom”.
‘Post-ideological liberals’ “share with traditional free-marketeers more positive attitudes towards those at the top of the income spectrum (though not quite the same opposition to measures to tackle inequality at the top), while not sharing traditional free-marketeers’
negative attitudes towards those experiencing poverty and opposition to measures to tackle inequality at the bottom”.
(Bamfield and Horton, 2009, p41-42))
Such heterogeneity in public attitudes may affect campaign tactics. Castell and
Thompson (2007) suggest that anti-poverty campaigning may best be targeted at what they call ‘low hanging fruit’; people who may have greatest sympathy for the campaign messaging. They identify:
“those who feel they have been close to poverty themselves
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teachers and other front-line workers who see poverty when they are at work
‘big tenters’ – those who have an open and generous conception of the welfare state, especially the constituency of affluent liberals.”
Castell and Thompson (2007, p viii)
Such an approach is known as audience ‘segmentation’- recognising that different campaign tactics and communications will be appropriate for different groups (Coe and Kingham, 2007) since the public is rarely a uniform group (Slater et al, 2006).
Although ideally, messaging would be personally tapered to each individual’s unique circumstances with a “perfectly individualised strategy” (Slater et al, 2006, p170) this is rarely possible. Market segmentation suggests that an audience can nonetheless be divided into clusters, based on group characteristics that make them (more) homogenous in their responses to a particular campaign (Rimal et al, 2009).
Audience segmentation may be based on demographic characteristics (such as age, gender etc.) But marketing literature suggests that nondemographic traits (such as values) are more likely to affect consumer behaviour (Yankelovich and Meer, 2006), and the importance of these traits to audience segmentation has also been recognised within the social marketing literature (Slater et al, 2006).
In the case of UK poverty, it has been suggested above that segmentation based on both demographic characteristics (such as experience of poverty) and values, may be used to identify a group which could be particularly responsive to communications about the issue, and to focus campaign actions on them.
The literature also makes a number of suggestions as to how both campaign groups, and the Government, can respond to negative public attitudes towards poverty in the UK.
Castell and Thompson (2007) conclude that studies need to bring the 21st century poor person ‘to life’, against public opinion which may, to a great extent, deny the existence of
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poverty in the UK. They argue that this needs to be done by ‘going with the grain’ of public opinion. They suggest three tactics which might be used in order to do this:
1) “Describe how specific elements of a person’s life make up one’s overall experience.” (Castell and Thompson, 2007, pvii)
Public support for the anti-poverty agenda might be built by reducing poverty to more easily understandable concepts, which the public can identify with. Delvaux and Rinne (2009) agree with this, suggesting that the UK anti-poverty agenda could be approached through easily graspable issues such as wage levels, debt or homelessness.
2) “Use an overarching metaphor for a broader systemic problem.” (Castell and Thompson, 2007, pvii)
Castell and Thompson (2007, p28) suggest that by using metaphors for life, such as associating life with an ‘unfair game’. They suggest this allows the opportunity to use rich imagery and metaphors, allows for engagement with structural factors (the rules of the game), and may help to understand the impact of ‘random external factors’ to people’s lives.
3) “Explain what we can do about it.” (Castell and Thompson, 2007, pvii)
The authors highlight the need to be clear about what can be done to improve the situation. They suggest that links need to be created between specific problems and specific solutions. Again, Delvaux and Rinne (2009, p8) agree with this message, arguing that “audiences want to see that the problem can be solved and want to be part of something that will (potentially) lead to a positive outcome.”