Blog Posts About: politics

The Perils of Explaining Politics

In the US, it's painfully obvious that political debates have become more distinctly partisan in recent years. Nearly every event or message can be seen as favoring one side over the other. This represents a real challenge for journalists and there is a lot of debate about the role of balance in the news. 

It's no different for explainers. If we want to increase understanding for everyone, we must present information in a form that avoids political persuasion. This means taking partisanship out of the equation and finding ways to explain ideas that focus not on politics, but meaning. Only by doing this can an idea teach its full potential.

This was our challenge with the video on Electing a US President. We spent a lot of time making sure that our colors, words and visuals did not appear to favor one side. That's why we chose to represent the process with three parties appearing as circles, triangles and squares.  

Buzzfeed recently published a short video that uses a similar approach. It's about redistricting in US states and how different states approach the process. For visuals, they use pizza. Check it out: 

Reading in email? Watch it here.

Overcoming The Illusion of Understanding

I’m sure you know a friend or relative who has strongly-held opinions about a subject and is convinced that their position is right. But when asked about specifics, it becomes clear that they lack a basic understanding of the working parts that back-up that position.
 
A recent article by Tania Lombrozo, PhD., a cognitive scientist at UC Berkeley, highlights what causes these extreme positions and what can be done to moderate them. Lombrozo’s article is based on a recent paper by psychologist Phil Fernbach of the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado.  Fernbach found that:
 
[…] people overestimate how well they understand the mechanics of complex policies, and this sense of understanding helps bolster politically extreme positions.
The striking implication, for which the researchers find support, is that getting people to appreciate their own ignorance can be enough to rein in strong opinions.
 
The question becomes: How? How does Aunt Sally come to appreciate that she doesn’t understand as much as she thinks she does? This is not the best dinner conversation.
 
Fernbach found that one successful option is to ask her to explain the issue:
 
Here's how the study worked. People completed an online survey in which they first rated their agreement with several policies, such as sanctions on Iran and a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions. They were then asked to estimate how well they felt they understood each policy and received an unexpected request: for two of the policies, they were told to "describe all the details" they knew about the impact of instituting that policy, "going from the first step to the last, and providing the causal connection between the steps."
 
In other words, people were asked to explain the nitty gritty mechanics of how the policy would play out, an exercise that led many to subsequently lower their estimates of how well they actually understood the policy.
 
Thus humbled, people's agreement or disagreement with the policy also became more moderate. More surprisingly, explaining also affected behavior: a follow-up study found that after explaining how various policies would work, people were less likely to donate money to an organization that supported the position they had originally endorsed.
 
This sounds familiar.  When writing scripts for Common Craft videos, I’ve often had my perspective of a subject change in the midst of explaining it.  The process of trying to make a subject understandable for others helps me see it from a new perspective.  This is one of the more powerful aspects of explanation that is often forgotten.  Through explaining, we learn. Lombrozo continues:
 
Why was explanation so effective? In a New York Times piece discussing this work, co-author Steven Sloman and Phil Fernbach suggest that explanation acts as "a kind of revelatory trigger mechanism" that forces people to confront their lack of understanding. When you think you understand, probe further. Ask yourself "how?" and "why?" Ask others the same.
 
That’s great advice. When I speak about the Art of Explanation, I encourage the audience to look for explanation problems and then write explanations that would solve them.  I ask them to pretend they are writing a script for a video because by simply writing about it, they will start to see it from a new more informed perspective. 
 
Paul Graham, who runs the venture capital firm Y-Combinator, said something similar about the writing process back in 2005:
 
I think it's far more important to write well than most people realize. Writing doesn't just communicate ideas; it generates them. If you're bad at writing and don't like to do it, you'll miss out on most of the ideas writing would have generated.
 
The next time you need to explain a complex idea, or even want to understand it better, start writing.  It’s an exercise that opens up the new perspectives. 
 
I highlight the work of Tania Lombrozo in my book The Art of Explanation. 
 

NOTE: If you're interested in learning in-depth about the skill of explanation and how to make Common Craft Style videos, check out our online courses at the Explainer Academy.

Interview with Patrick Sharma, Newsbound's Explainer-in-Chief

A while back I noticed that an organization called Newsbound posted a job opening for an "Explainer-in-Chief", a title I love to see. Curious, I followed Newsbound and eventually met Patrick Sharma, the person who now fills that role. He's been kind enough to answer a few questions and share a remarkable format the company is using to package explanations. 

1. Tell me about Newsbound and your role there. What's the company's mission and story? 
 
Newsbound is a San Francisco-based digital media company that focuses on providing backstory and explanation for ongoing news stories, such as the war in Afghanistan and the federal budget debate. We were founded back in 2011 by Josh Kalven. Josh has a background in political media, and during his previous gig (editing Progress Illinois) was frustrated by the lack of contextual information in most newspaper stories. Newsbound is an attempt to help solve this problem, and over the past few months we've been experimenting with different ways of delivering background information to news readers.
 
As Newsbound's "explainer-in-chief," I help develop our content. I figure out what topics we break down and how to do it. In addition to Josh, I work with an extremely talented team of graphic designers (Tabriz Ghazi and Katie Tonkovich) to get our pieces ready for publication.
 
2. How is explanatory journalism different than other kinds of journalism?
 
Explanatory journalists don't break the news: we break it down. Most of what constitutes the "news" is focused on reporting the latest development in a particular story. Explanatory journalism, by contrast, takes issues that pop up in the news and makes them understandable for readers. Newspapers, radio, and television reporters often assume that news consumers understand the basics of a story. But the truth is that many people don't have that knowledge and, as a result, decide to tune out. This is a problem, because with a little bit of explanation, complex and seemingly obscure topics -- such as the federal budget debate or the crisis in Syria -- can be made understandable. When people have a basic understanding of an issue, they are much more likely to be engaged and informed. In other words, just a little bit of up front explanation can empower more people to consume the news. 
 
3. Do you have a process or best practices for explaining? What makes your explanations different?
 
I'm still finding my voice as an explanatory journalist, but there are a few key things that we try to do in our explanations. The first is to focus the piece around a particular question rather than a general topic. (So our piece on political conventions is titled, "How Conventions Became Campaign Commercials," rather than "Political Conventions.") I find that this helps focus the piece and gives people a more accessible entry into the story. It's also a lot less boring and encyclopedia-like. Another thing we try to do is to give people a sense of where we will be going with our explanation. At the outset we state where we're going in the piece, how we are going to get there, and what you as a reader will get out of the process. 
 
Our explanations are different than most of what you'll find on the internet in that they're published in a graphic-rich, interactive slideshow format. We call this the "stack." It's designed is to lead readers through a dense and unfamiliar topic without overwhelming or intimidating them along the way. Our overarching design goal is to encourage focus and cut out the distractions that have become so common in the current news environment.
 
So far, we've found that the "stack" format, even in its current alpha version, is an extremely effective vehicle for explanation. More than half of the users who start our pieces finish them, and a sizeable number go on to share them via Facebook or Twitter. We believe that these metrics will climb even higher as we refine both the reading experience and our own explanations. 

Here is an example of the stack format Patrick mentions. I think it's a remarkable and effective way to package and present information and explanations:

Thanks to Patrick for taking the time. You can follow him on Twitter @Patrick_Sharma and find more explainers on the Newsbound blog.

Video: Explaining The US Election Process

This time of year, politics is everywhere, and so is confusion. Electing the US president is a complex subject with lots of moving parts.  

That’s why we chose to explain it with a simple, non-biased video that uses visuals to make it understandable.  It’s one of my favorite videos in our library and I hope it will be helpful to you and people you know. Please feel free to share it.

Looking for more videos like this?  Check out our library of video explanations. Or build your own explanation skills with The Art of Explanation, a new book by Common Craft founder Lee LeFever.

Bill Clinton Shows Why Explanation is an Art

Late last week I got a text message from my politically-conservative brother in North Carolina that said “Has there ever been a better political speaker than Bill Clinton?” Indeed, wherever you stand on the political spectrum, it’s difficult to deny the effectiveness of Bill Clinton as a speaker. 

E. J. Dionne published an opinion in the Washington Post where he said: 
Bill Clinton is typically described as the empathetic, feel-your-pain guy. But his greatest political skill may be as a formulator of arguments — the explainer in chief.
Recently USA Today quoted Obama saying this about Clinton:
Somebody emailed me after his speech -- they said, you need to appoint him secretary of explaining stuff... That was pretty good. I like that... the secretary of explaining stuff.
I like it too. 
 
I think Bill Clinton’s abilities as an explainer highlight a big point about explanation. It is an art - everyone does it a little differently and that’s what makes it special.  From The Art of Explanation:
Like any art form, explanation thrives on being unique and novel; it succeeds when it helps people see ideas from a new perspective. It is a conscious act that depends on creativity more than a specific formula or set of steps.
And so it is with Bill Clinton. His explanations are unique to his style and way of thinking. They reflect specific choices by him (and presumably his speechwriters) that present information a remarkably effective manner. But what’s really happening? What can we learn from Bill Clinton? A couple of thoughts...
 
Art and science, working together.  Facts are often backed up by evidence and it’s easy to assume that they can or will speak for themselves. But it’s just not true.  Facts need help to become interesting and understandable.  Bill Clinton’s creative talent is packaging facts into a form that makes people care - and that is one of the true goals of explanation - to package and communicate facts in way that makes people understand, care and feel motivated.
 
Bill Clinton feels your pain. When he packages facts into explanations he does so with an incredible awareness of the audience’s attitudes, styles and perspectives. He can imagine what it’s like for them to hear and feel his words. This is empathy and it's incredibly important to explanations.  His explanations are designed to make the audience feel confident by talking to them in a style that comes across as authentic and real.  
 
Of course, a lot more goes into a Clinton speech.  His good ‘ole boy informality can be disarming. He builds context, tells great stories and make clear connections.  All are important. But the real art of what he does as an explainer boils down to how he approaches facts and packages them into a form that make people care. In that, he is a master. 
 
(Photo : REUTERS/Eric Thayer)
 
Lee LeFever is the founder of Common Craft and author of The Art of Explanation - Making Your Ideas, Products and Services Easier to Understand. Available for pre-order now and arriving in bookstores and eReaders in mid-October. 

Explanations Lower the Cost of Figuring Something Out

 

Recently Jay Rosen published a fascinating article on his PressThink blog that focuses on politics and how the parties have learned to exploit an “electoral blind spot”.  As Rosen puts it:

The blind spot is the point at which voters stop paying attention because the costs of figuring out what’s really going on are too high. 

It’s a fascinating article, and I really love this idea of “costs of figuring something out”. The article is about politics and the press, but I think the idea applies to many other subjects.

Think about Twitter or QR codes or almost any innovation.  In the beginning, the costs to figuring the subject out are high. It takes valuable time to do research, to find the right tools, to be informed enough to have an educated opinion.  It’s a barrier that creates a blind spot for the mainstream, who simply can’t justify the costs.

The geeks and early adopters are motivated and they get over the barrier easily. While they understand these new ideas, they are not often well equipped to make them understandable for others.  The blind spot remains.

The question becomes - how do we fill these blind spots?  How do we get the mainstream, your mom, your teacher, your boss, over that barrier? 

My answer, to use Rosen's words, is that we lower the cost of figuring something out.  How? My answer is to focus on explanations - create packages of ideas that are designed to fill the blind spot and help people say “Oh, I get it now!”

While explanations can come in many forms, we’re oriented around video explanations. We do the research, so you don’t have to. It’s all about providing information to fill the blind spot and help people feel informed enough to have an opinion and care enough to want to learn more. That’s where the magic really begins.