ABSTRACT
Public policy leaders, lobbyists and others engaged in the formulation and execution of policies consciously or unconsciously adopt the agenda setting, framing and priming of the communication strategy. All policies are messages to the public that the leadership thinks, claims to think, are in the public’s interest. Public policy management is a continuum, with the policy first constructed as a public agenda, and then political actors and interest group elites deem it necessary to have a strong public support by framing public issues into communication ‘sound bites’ for easy public understanding and acceptance. Priming is to bring about behaviour and opinion change, the acceptance of the policy. In the public policy process, agenda setting and framing are policy message management, while priming is behaviour and change management. Agenda refers to the policy content, framing is to facilitate adoption of the policy, and priming is the implementation or execution of the policy content. In this book, social marketing, activism, lobbying, nudging, persuasion and other planned and sustained communication strategies are regarded and discussed as priming activities.
