tCI’s Remmert Keijzer on the influence it will have on running a consultation

2016 is almost coming to an end and we can all agree that it has been a somewhat turbulent year. The first half of 2016 was largely dominated by the Brexit referendum and the latter half by the US Presidential Election. Most of us would have bet money on ‘Remain’ and on Hillary Clinton winning the election but neither has happened. Social scientists and political observers claim that something fundamentally has changed in modern-day society: that people no longer believe globalisation is a good thing, that the establishment doesn’t take their views into account and that they want someone to represent them who can ‘shake things up’.

In the run-up to Brexit, my Facebook feed was dominated by staunch Remainers who predicted gloom and doom should the UK leave the European Union. Similarly, the newspapers I personally chose to read were far from objective on the matter and almost brainwashed me into believing that the UK would indeed be worse off outside the EU. Social media channels are very intelligent in only showing you the stuff you’re interested in, based on your browsing history and your level of online involvement in discussions. Facebook themselves has said:

“We are updating News Feed over the comings weeks so that the things posted by the friends you care about are higher up in your News Feed.”

We now have the power to shape our own media consumption around our own opinions, and politicians are all too keen to reinforce them. A columnist of the New York Times phrased it perfectly by saying:

“We are in the middle of a transition from a society of facts to a society of data. During this interim, confusion abounds surrounding the exact status of knowledge and numbers in public life, exacerbating the sense that truth itself is being abandoned.”

What this is doing is creating an ‘Echo Chamber’. These Chambers reinforce the information, ideas and beliefs that I hold dear with the consequence of only hearing one side of the argument/debate. It is almost like we are being forced to choose sides and there’s no room for alternative views or middle ground. Per the Oxford Dictionary, the definition of post-truth is: “relation to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”

Fact-checkers in the run-up to Brexit and the US Presidential Election were working around the clock to prove or disprove claims from Remainers, Leavers, Trump and Clinton. But, surprisingly, even when their claims were disproved, people still believed them to be true and event went as far as to cast doubt on the credibility of the fact-checkers. Social media is often held responsible for creating this post-truth society but politicians and the media are also at fault.

Consultors in a public consultation are no exception and often see their consultations hijacked by campaigning groups or MPs, legally challenged or with a declining level of involvement from consultees. Even if you run a good consultation, meeting all the legal and best practice requirements, angry stakeholders will label your consultation as shambolic as the consultation didn’t meet their expectations or they didn’t agree with the result.

What will the future have in store for consultations in a post-truth society? Will public bodies employ their own fact-checkers to counteract false claims by opponents? Will all consultations be a tick-box exercise as civil servants question the use of them? Will people choose to ignore your consultation narrative?

One way to stop all of this from happening, is to put an increased urgency to utilise mediums in consultation that explore the rationale of consultees who have chosen to express an opinion on part of your consultation and asking them to show evidence to support their claims. What you’re asking from your stakeholders is the need to require more information from them to make a more informed decision. Another solution, Social Listening! Social Listening is the process of monitoring  digital conversations to understand what people are saying about a news story. Through this you can identify sentiments and correct them before they become mainstream.

Have you got any solutions? You might do but I’m not sure I’ll believe you.