mediadev library

"The Talking about Poverty (TaP) project, which ran from 2016 to 2021, aimed to develop a more effective way of communicating about UK poverty through ‘framing’ – an evidence-based communications strategy. For this project, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) worked with the FrameWorks Instit ... ute, which is a not-for-profit communications research organisation based in the United States. In 2021, a sister organisation, FrameWorks UK, was established in the United Kingdom (UK), which focuses on supporting mission-driven organisations to apply strategic communications research in practice. The TaP project set out to understand the public’s attitudes to poverty in the UK and used insight from research with 20,000 people (Volmert et al, 2016) to develop ways to talk about poverty in a more effective way. To challenge the unhelpful narratives identified in the research, the project developed an evidence-based communications strategy (‘poverty framing’) to increase the public’s understanding of UK poverty and provide support for measures to address it. [...] There are some key development areas for future framing projects such as stronger project planning and management, monitoring and evaluation, and sustainability planning. However, the TaP project made PWLE who were engaged in the project feel more hopeful about the future and confident that the project would have a positive, accumulative effect on how poverty is being talked about in public discourse, with some indications that the project may have had some influence in the media and the House of Commons. The TaP project created a buzz in the third sector and was credited with helping to build a movement, leading to a more co-ordinated sector. While we identified a need and desire to engage the third sector and PWLE earlier on in the project, the vast majority of third sector partners and allies who were engaged in our evaluation both valued and used the framing in their work, crediting the framing with adding more dignity, positivity and effectiveness to their communications. The TaP project brought hundreds of organisations together for the Keep the Lifeline campaign and provided a robust and evidence-based communications strategy for their internal staff and external allies." (Executive summary, pages 3-6) more

"Fourteen million people are living in poverty in the UK – that’s one in five of us. We see poverty in countless stories: families struggling to make ends meet, soaring housing costs pushing people into debt, the rise of insecure and low-paid work, unequal access to resources, flaws in the benef ... more

"At JRF, we want to inspire action and change to solve UK poverty, but we know there’s a lot of work to do if more people are to understand it and call more loudly for solutions. To help with this challenge, we’re changing the story we tell about poverty, using framing. This toolkit explains wha ... more

"Public understanding of poverty in the UK is limited. The media can give people with experience of poverty the opportunity to present their views, experiences and opinions, which can help to inform and create a groundswell of public opinion supporting efforts to tackle poverty. This study focuses o ... more

Talking about poverty: Lessons learnt

Reporting Poverty: A Guide for Media Professionals

How to prepare for media interviews about poverty

Framing Toolkit: #TalkingAboutPoverty

Poverty in the Media: Being Seen and Getting Heard

The Media, Poverty and Public Opinion in the UK

Challenging the Digital Divide? A Literature Review of Community Informatics Initiatives