ABSTRACT
No matter how important and valuable a message is, it will not yield the desired outcome if it does not reach its audience. This lesson is taught in many areas of our everyday life, such as in education or relationships. For communicating policies, there is no difference. To ensure that a message is understandable for the public, appropriate communication strategies must be adopted. Therefore, it is important for policymakers to know how different elements of a message can be used to deliver its content effectively. In this chapter, we focus on providing an overview of case studies that tested different elements of communication, largely related to message content. We suggest that the use of principles such as personalization, temporal distance, framing, participation, operational transparency, simplicity, and salience may result in better policy outcomes through increased public engagement. We highlight both the opportunities and potential pitfalls of implementing those strategies at scale. To show the practical value of these guidelines, we discuss different attempts at translating scientific findings into policy and engaging the public in new policies.
