1st Edition
Public Interest Communications Strategy for Changemakers
1 What’s public interest communications?
2 The Six Spheres of Influence: The building blocks of strategy
3 The power of policy
4 The power of activism
5 Activating media
6 The market and industry sphere
7 Issue shapers: Communities of influence
8 Using social norms to drive change
9 Using the six spheres to create your theory of change
10 Back-of-the-Envelope strategy
11 What do you want to be true that isn’t true right now?
12 Who must act for that to happen?
13 What would they believe if they were taking action?
14 How will we connect with them?
15 Measuring what matters
16 Putting together your plan
Biography
Ann Searight Christiano is the founder and director of the Center for Public Interest Communications and a clinical professor in the Department of Public Relations at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, USA. The Center works with organizations around the world to bring a public interest communications approach to complex communications challenges. Searight Christiano developed the first-ever curriculum in public interest communications and completed a 10-year term as the inaugural Karel Chair in Public Interest Communications in 2020. Before coming to the University of Florida in 2010, Searight was a senior communications officer for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, directing communications for programs that address social factors like housing, education and mental health that drive health and wellbeing.
Angela Bradbery is the Karel Chair in Public Interest Communications in the Department of Public Relations at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, USA. Before joining the university in 2020, she was communications director at Public Citizen, a Washington, D.C.-based public interest advocacy organization where she developed and implemented communications strategies at the national, state and local levels and led coalition communications efforts. Bradbery also co-founded Smokefree DC, a volunteer-run advocacy organization that achieved the passage of smokefree workplace legislation in Washington, D.C., in 2006. Prior to that, she was a reporter for The Palm Beach Post, the Sun Sentinel and the Chicago Tribune. She earned a bachelor of science degree in journalism from UF in 1986.
“Public interest communication demands that we have solid strategies to do work that matters to human and community wellbeing. This book gives professionals, academics, and students a useful model and a connected set of questions to help with strategy, so that our work is focused, effective, and measurable.”
Jacqueline Lambiase, Texas Christian University, USA
“This textbook offers a much-needed resource for teaching public interest communication with its emphasis on applied communication strategy and campaign planning. Ann Christiano and Angela Bradbery bring a wealth of bona fides to this project. They have the relevant expertise, research-grounded knowledge, and classroom-tested approaches to help students, practitioners, and educators not just understand theory but also put it into action. For educators and students passionate about creating meaningful, issue-driven change, this book is an essential classroom resource.”
Natalie Tindall, University of Texas at Austin, USA
