Making your

research hit the

headlines

11

Making your research hit the

headlines

The National Centre for Social Research (NatCen)

What is “social research”?

Social research stories in the press

What type of research do I want for my story:

- Research that gives you numbers

- Research that doesn’t

Workshop: Making your research hit the headlines

22

The National Centre for Social Research

(NatCen)

Social research charity, set up almost 50 years ago

100 social scientists and 800 interviewers

British Social Attitudes survey

Policy and survey research

33

What is social research?

Research used by social scientists to understand society.

- Covers range of social policy areas – education, health, crime

etc.

- Cuts across economics and politics.

- Two basic methods: quantitative and qualitative

- Surveys, polls, focus groups, evaluations.

What it is not

Medical research

Market research

However, the principles of getting research into the

media are the same.

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Social research stories in the press – 17

November 2016

What type of

research do I

need – and how

do I get it into

the press

66

Research that gives you numbers Polling, surveys and secondary analysis

What’s it for?

- Understand the public view on an issue

- Uncovering facts about people and their behaviour

What’s the difference?

- Polls vs Surveys

- Secondary analysis – a treasure trove of data

Need to know:

Cost: from £250 to £1m

Assessing quality: Sample size important, but quality of sample is key.

What do you get?

- Stats that can make a great story

- Quick and dirty poll great for a headline – but media more discerning than

in the past

- Authoritative survey can influence policy

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Getting your numbers into the pressPolling, surveys and secondary analysis all give us numbers and we know stats

make for a good story, but how else can you maximise success?

Getting the sell-in right:

- Involve key targets in advance – What are the questions the media want

answered?

- Find the political angle – What are the wider implications of your research?

- Offer unique angles – “exclusive” analysis/data to key targets

- Setting the right embargo – is the midnight embargo a thing of the past?

- Make your numbers real – e.g. turn % in people

- Know your method – Polling issues mean journalists are increasingly tuned in to

methodology

Producing creative, shareable content:

- Rise of data journalists – Make data available

- Explore creative content with outlets in advance – Could they build a quiz or an

interactive

- Create your own creative content – can you build an interactive that will

capture imagination?

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Creative content

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Considerations

The public may not agree with you or you may find people

are not doing what you expected.

Be prepared for what you might find and how you will deal

with research that doesn’t tell you what you want to hear.

The media may pick up on an angle you don’t want them

too (applies to all research).

Manage with exclusives.

Prepare your spokespeople.

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Qualitative research

What’s it for?

- Getting under the skin of an issue

- Following up survey research to understand better what people

mean

- Hard to reach groups and sensitive subjects

Need to know:

- Cost: from £5-50k

- Judging quality: Access, ethics

- Anonymity

What do you get?

- Colourful, rounded insights

- Unique and new perspectives

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Getting qualitative research into the press

Without the numbers that give you a simple story you need to think more

carefully.

Getting the sell-in right:

- More suited to features and longer, thoughtful pieces.

- Focus on journalists who are highly engaged in the issue – commentators

rather than reporters.

- Often great for broadcast if you have access to case studies.

- Draw out interesting quotes and comments (these also work well for social

media).

- Encourage researchers to think about the ways in which you might be able

to generalise about the findings.

Producing creative content:

- More people are trying to visualise qualitative data.

1212

Considerations

Case studies are key, but researchers may demand anonymity

If you are aware, you can prepare your own in advance.

1313

Evaluations

What’s it for?

- Evaluating whether your service is delivering what you want it

to.

- Assessing the effectiveness of a policy or intervention.

Need to know:

- Cost: from £10k upwards.

- Works best for understanding your own work.

- Judging quality: Closest to medical research – RCTs.

What you get?

- Evidence that proves the value of your work.

1414

Getting an evaluation into the press

Getting the sell-in right:

- Often more suited to sector/trade press.

- Consider other ways of reaching practitioners – e.g.

social media focus.

- New audiences - RCTs in particular are of interest to

the Research press.

1515

Considerations

Your service or intervention may not work as well you like.

Bad news, more newsworthy than good news.

Can you focus on the learnings?

Does this become leverage for political campaigning?

Workshop –

getting your

research into

the press

1717

Research checklist

Poll Survey Secondary

analysis

Evaluation Qualitative

Small budget

Big budget

Tabloid friendly

Quality

press/BBC

Policy influence

Feature articles

Broadcast

Exclusive

1818

Getting your research into the pressYour research proposal

1. What do you want to know

more about?

Evaluate a service or find out what people think

2. What are your objectives? Headlines or policy influence?

3. What is your budget? Can you afford a quick poll or a high quality survey?

4. What kind of research

matches these requirements?

(see checklist)

Poll, survey, qualitative, evaluation?

How will you get this into the press?

1. Does your research answer

the right questions?

Desk research and will you involve a journalist from the start?

2. What is the angle? Wider implications? Features or news pages?

3. Will you offer exclusives? Data exclusives or on the entire report?

4. What content can you create

in addition to traditional media

materials?

Create your own visualisation or work with media partner?

5. What is the embargo? What is your target outlet? How far in advance will you share your research? Is it likely to be

broken?

6. Can you explain your

method?

One or two simple sentences

Contact

Leigh Marshall

Head of communications

T. 020 7549 8506

E. leigh.marshall@natcen.ac.uk

Visit us online, natcen.org.uk

Visit the CharityComms website

to view slides from past events,

see what events we have

coming up and to check out

what else we do:

www.charitycomms.org.uk

8 December 2016

London

#charityPR

Behind the headlines:getting your charity’s

story into the news