NewGovernment, Media and Your Audiences: Strategies and tactics for success

Dates:

• 17 - 21 August - London (£2,850)

Workshop Outline

In our fast-moving media environment, governments’ reputations are made and broken in minutes. Public leaders and those who advise them must understand the media marketplace and how it operates. To succeed in an increasingly contested and combative environment, politicians and advisers must deploy a range of media skills as part of a broader communications strategy.

This workshop is a fast-paced, lively and discursive week-long experience, with discussions, guest speakers, visits and industry expert insight. We will work together to benchmark your existing plans and practices, draft communications plans, prepare for crises and review a range of communications disciplines from storytelling and speechwriting to broadcast interviews and social media.

Who is the workshop for?

This workshop is designed for public figures and those working with them: those in high-profile government communication and information roles (such as heads of communication and press and marketing officers), political and general editors from national newspapers, broadcasting organisations and news agencies and spokespeople from political parties and non-governmental organisations. The workshop will also benefit others responsible for communicating with the public.

Workshop Objectives

The workshop will:

• Develop your knowledge of how government and other public organisations use communications to help devise and deliver effective policies and programmes.
• Help you to learn from the experience of UK government communicators and of leading journalists and editors, including how to raise awareness of the importance of communications in your own organisation.
• Encourage you to consider ways of using a range of media and different messengers to widen access to public information and reach fragmented audiences.
• Raise your awareness of how to handle public communication and apply strategic communication techniques to improve the image of your government.
• Establish good practice across the world as you share experience from your country with others in comparable situations.

Key topics

What the workshop will cover:

• The golden rules of communications in a government context.
• How to create a communications strategy for your organisation.
• How to fashion a narrative and use storytelling in your communications.
• Assessing risks and threats and preparing for crises.
• The opportunities and downsides of social media platforms.
• How to deal with journalists, including media and print interviews and preparing media scripts.
• Effective writing and persuasive language.
• Dealing with ‘fake news’.

The workshop will include presentations and discussions. You will have the opportunity to discuss practical issues affecting your own professional life and to compare and contrast experience with counterparts from different countries.