How to: Make Your Community Feel Valued

The Power of Communities

This week the topic of discussion was based on community engagement. We had a guest speaker from a local council present to our class. She shared with us success stories of community engagement and why it is so important. There are many things that I deeply enjoyed about the presentation - to the extent where it sparked an interest in me as something I should consider trying my hand at, later in my own career. We were given handouts on "Increasing the level of public impact." The handout illustrated the IAP2 Public Participation Spectrum. There are 5 stages of public participation:

1. To Inform

2. Consult

3. Involve

4. Collaborative

5. Empower

Now I was learning all these things and starting to feel motivated about making changes in my own community, but then I heard this: "It's not about reaching a consensus." 

When I heard this, I just felt so insulted and irritated. Isn't the entire point of community engagement, to achieve an agreement of some sort? To negotiate, compromise and then reach a common understanding, which at least satisfies the needs of all parties? It's cruel and even offensive to inspire people to waste their breath for the sake of being heard, but not listened to. Hearing is superficial, but can be helpful. However if people have been invited to speak - then do more than hear them, actually listen, or the spectrum quickly turns into this:

1: Inform

2. Consult

3. Ignore   

4. Overrule

5. Demoralise

After the presentation, I read this week's reading by Hartz-Karp (2005), which shed some light on the situation and taught me that community engagement is essentially "deliberative democracy". The three key elements of deliberative democracy, which apply also to community engagement, are:

• Influence
• Inclusion
• Deliberation

Influence is the first fundamental step, because opinions must have the capacity to influence the process. Or why bother in the first place? Inhibiting an opinion from influencing discussion, essentially violates one of the primary purposes of community engagement.  Furthermore, the final step in deliberative democracy requires "movement toward [a] consensus" (Hartz-Karp 2005). Which means that the intention to justify non-consensus is based in error and self-interest. I say this because while I was reading Hartz-Karp (2005, 1), I stumbled upon this:

"We need to reinforce that we are a democracy, the problems confronting government are the problems of the community and we have to work together to solve them." 

I reflected on this statement and came to understand the problem with government and why consensus is not perceived as a necessity. 

The government is self-interested. If the Government's primary interest was honestly the community's primary interest, then the necessity of consensus would be undeniable. Instead, it seems like people are the tools that facilitate things for the government. It is the government who should facilitate things for the people. That quote should not say that "the problems facing the government are the problems of the community."

Since when does life revolve around the government? Life has always revolved around the community first, and the attitudes should be reversed. "We [the community] need to enforce that we are a democracy, the problems confronting [the] community are the problems of the government", it shouldn't be the other way around. We are more than just tools for the government to use when it suits them, and community engagement IS about consensus. If it is not - then you are doing it wrong.

Fly or Flop - The Role of the Moderator

Week 6 | Getting to know your audiences: Interviews & focus groups

During this week's tutorial, the class was divided into 3 groups. In our groups, we had to prepare a structure which we would use to manage a focus group. Upon reflection, I considered a number of things. Firstly, what we could have done better; secondly, the role of the moderator and how that influenced the general focus group dynamic and lastly, I realised that we were almost a part of a focus group double-layer. Pre-assigned students played moderator roles, then Veronica re-assumed the moderator's role during group-to-group transitions. It was nearly (or was) a focus group within a focus group!

What we could have done better:

- Stacks and Michaelson (2010) say that questions need to become more specific as time advances. I recognise now that this would have enabled us to draw more relevant answers from the group. In turn, this would have allowed us to accurately fulfill our objective.

- The responses made it apparent to me that our questions were based in our own bias'. We had formed questions that depended on price as the factor which influenced student spending habits the most - when it turned out to be quality which most affected their decisions to buy food on campus.

- The seating. I regret that I didn't ask to pause our time so that we could reformat how we were seated. I am well used to circular seating and I understand how fruitful it is because of my history with drama and acting. The difference was significant once we were all seated in a circle.

The Role of the Moderator:

Some moderators addressed the group briefly but others remained as the prominent moderator figure. In no particular order, I picked up on these things:

- Moderator A was very definitive. Discussion was always kept on topic and within scope. Overall, the process was clear, highly coherent and flowed logically from start to end. It was evident that this was due to the moderator's focus. Austin and Pinkleton (2015) have identified that focus is a key to refining information, which is why of all the moderators - I believe moderator A would be the one to produce the best information.

- Moderator B posed a thought provoking question but it unfortunately stunted discussion. I suspect that the reason for this is because moderator B had been taking notes and analysing responses in depth. Therefore, moderator B was more deeply involved than most participants. This may have caused the question to seem like it came from nowhere. Perhaps a short recap could have helped contextualise the question before asking it. This would have given most, a chance to 'catch up'.

- Moderator C was able to expand on the question swiftly when faced with a barrier. Participants did not know how to respond to a very general question. Moderator C was able to elaborate without giving away the details that would lead to the development of preconceived notions on the topic. Moderator C talked too much, however. It should have been 80% participants and 20% moderator speaking.

- Moderator D was very passive and softly spoken. It enticed people to contribute. Some of the quieter students spoke up the most for moderator D. The moderator was prompt in moving to the next question but to some extent it impeded conversation. This moderator also carried the least expression while speaking. A combination of tone and promptness made it seem like our responses were to some extent - unimportant.

- Moderator E had a very conversational tone, which made them approachable. They were very relaxed in posture, and the informality caused their question to seem like one based in interest - when in fact it was fundamental to their objective. This seemed to work in their favour though since we all felt comfortable responding honestly. I would be curious to see moderator E facilitate a controversial topic.

- Moderator F was very expressive in tone and was good at drawing insightful responses from the group. Moderator F conveyed a definite air of direct questioning. Consequently, individuals tended to address their answers specifically to moderator F, rather than engaging with each other. Maybe this is how it is supposed to be? Dialogue is one of the advantages of qualitative research, after all (but I can't remember which reading mentioned it).

In summary, I have seen first hand how a moderator affects group dynamic. The success or failure of a focus group really depends on the moderator's skills. In future, if I ever find that I do not have the budget for a highly experienced moderator, then I am confident that I can hire one based on what I need and the moderator's personal attributes. 

The Benefit of Qualitative Research

In week 5, the Commissioner of the West Australian Electoral Commission (WAEC) kindly gave up his time to talk about challenges facing the WAEC and to answer questions that would assist us in our next assignment. Appropriately, the week's topic was "The power of observation."

A summary of Stacks (2010) 'Practitioner's Guide to Public Relations Research'  outlines that the intent of qualitative research is to bring forth attitudinal and behavioural insight through detailed responses. The qualitative research methodologies discussed, covered in-depth interviews, participant observation and focus groups. Upon reflection, I cannot identify which of the methodologies applied to the visit, except that participant observation is not applicable.

Reasons why the Commissioner's visit does not fall under the category of a focus group:

• - The overall purpose of the discussion was not focused on the exploration of the class' opinions
• - While the class had a common background, it cannot particularly be said that the topic was a shared interest
• - Individuals were not present voluntarily

Reasons why the Commissioner's visit did resemble a focus group:

• - Veronica played the role of the moderator
• - It can be generally said that it was a controlled group discussion
• - The Commissioner posed the question - what could we suggest the WAEC do differently in order to encourage our demographic to enrol to vote? He openly sought our opinions and discussion, which are elements of a focus group

Why the visit does not seem like an in-depth interview

• - An in-depth interview is one-on-one, his visit was not a one-on-one environment 
• - Questions had not been sent to him prior to his attendance. For the most part they may have caught him by surprise
• - The location was student domain. An in-depth interview typically takes place in a location where the interviewee is most comfortable or at least neutral (but never in the interviewer's company office, for example)
• - The diversity of student lead to diverse questions that at some stages also seemed to be off-track

Why aspects of the visit seemed like an in-depth interview

• - The questions drew rich responses
• - Some student were able to use funnel questions

In sum, I greatly benefited from his visit. I had prepared a couple of probe questions defined by Stacks (2010), which I unfortunately did not get to ask because there was too little time. However, I would have liked to have asked the Commissioner, was; why it was so significant to him personally, to capture the votes of 18-25 year old's - other than the fact that it was his job to do so? 

Part of me tells me that I simply enjoy asking the hard questions that make people uncomfortable, but the other part of me knows that everything about his tone, reaction, body language and expression would have pinpointed his exact attitude towards us, which would have given me a great head start on making recommendations. Not that the words he used weren't telling enough - something you simply can't acquire through a survey.

Well, at least I got to ask how old the social media lady was. Call it what you will, the fact is that nothing replaces the insight of a person's physical cues as much as an unexpected question. In case you were wondering - yes it was a setup, I knew the answer before I asked it. In fact what I keep coming back to - is that when you're trying to get through to people, just speak how they speak and the task will get a whole lot easier. If anything, it was the Commissioner's visit that proved it to me.