ABSTRACT
During FRA’s first decade of communicating a wide range of scientific research to influence human rights policy, a universal revolution in communication methods and technology was underway. This was accompanied by a transformation in the political environment within which the Agency speaks. In the early years of the Agency’s existence, rights language enjoyed a greater legitimacy in the public sphere. With the rise of populism, the effects of real or perceived crises in governance, finance and migration took hold in grassroots politics, and Europe’s rights narrative is increasingly engaged within polarized discourses. In this latter period the Agency has flipped communication from serving as a mere conduit of rights-based research to becoming a free-standing sub-field in human rights, expanding its own evidence base on communicating rights through consultation with experts and stakeholders and fostering amongst wider civil society a collective conversation on messaging rights.
