Week 2 blog: Content v Context
This week shone some interesting light on the context versus content debate for me. The debate we heard was on which was more important, the content you provided the readers or the context you put the content in. After my experience this week, I would have to say it’s a mix of both. You need the content to get your point across, but you also have to put it in a specific context for the reader to understand your message. You can’t have just one or the other, you need both.
One of my assignments was to take a recent headline and find every article dealing with that headline. Once I found an article I had to synthesize the information in it to five sentences and create mini-blurbs of the articles with new and catchy taglines. These mini-blurbs with taglines would be combined into one large document and sent out to those on our mailing list. The objectives were to a) get the point across b) cause the reader to become interested/intrigued/concerned about the topic and c) inspire those who received the information to act on those concerns and get involved. In politics it’s the content that matters, there needs to be some sort of message that you are trying to send. There needs to be a stance that you advocate for and things you advocate against. Yet you also need to set the correct context to ensure that your message will inspire at least one person to act on the news. To just disseminate information is only half of the job of the communication department, the other half is making that information represent the message you want to send to the constituents. You have to make sure they feel as though the information relates to them, but you can’t just feed them crappy content in a context that relates to them, there needs to be a balance of good content in relevant context. There has to be a representation of the information in a way that makes the constituents feel that it’s a relevant topic and not just “Washington politics”. Through the assignment I had to take articles apart and turn them into things that represented the “fears” of a republican constituency, even if the original article did nothing of the sort. Representation for me is a type of mix between content and context. There has to be a mix of both quality content and a context that matches the readers.
Basically, in politics we try to use everything at our disposal. It’s never a debate of either or it’s only a question of what else can we do to expand and extend our message. All is fair in love and war…..and politics.