Consider the power of your language as a professional communicator

As communicators, do we ever really understand the power of the language we use? It might be trite to say that we probably don’t give it a second thought most of the time because it’s essentially what we do. To communicate, we use words. We turn words into a message that conveys something through the lens in which people see us or our agency.

To people who can naturally write and are gifted with the ability to put into words things that people find hard to convey, it’s often strange to hear how it truly affects people.

Perhaps I am speaking from my own personal experience in this regard. I’ve always enjoyed writing since I was very young and still have the same typewriter I begged for as a six year old. No Barbie dolls for me - carbon paper and white out, thank you very much. People have looked on as my fingers danced across a keyboard to write the perfect email or the quick-response to a challenging question. That’s not to say when it comes to things like percentages or painting a landscape, I am decidedly dim-witted. I also look on in awe at someone who can make the most charming conversation with a total stranger in a train carriage - without fear or favor.

That said, I am always pleased to see my words in print and even more so when I know it’s helped to achieve a good outcome or has simply made someone laugh or feel understood, which in itself is powerful. 

When you consider memories of popular culture and big events, we usually remember the words of slogans, jingles, marketing messages or certain media coverage. We also remember campaigns. My earliest memories, growing up in the UK were a constant visual of the threat of terrorism from the IRA. The earliest incarnation of ‘see something, say something’ is still a strong imprint from every train journey to London and every walk through a tube station. There are British people of a certain age who are, by and large, a paranoid wreck. Then we joined the police service. 

Other campaigns were indelible on the British psyche in the eighties - primarily around the nuclear threat, not dying of ignorance because of AIDS, making sure you didn’t wander onto disused building sites and the main one - ‘stranger danger'. It is only with the benefit of hindsight that you can truly see how a notion or a narrative shifted the collective consciousness to alter behavior or opinion in such a way that historical changes occurred. It may sound somewhat grandiose, but when you consider the likes of public information messaging you can see now, how down the line, this impacts upon society in a generational sense.

When I refer to ‘Stranger Danger’ it only dawned on my after a particularly horrific and painfully long investigation into institutional historic sex abuse in the UK that we had, in essence, made a rod for our own collective backs. 

To those who never experienced the ‘Stranger Danger’ campaign, it generally consisted of the British Government telling small children that shifty looking men were going to lure you away from the school gates with puppies or chocolate. They would pretend to be a ‘friend of your mum’s’ and say she was not able to pick you up. Then they would take you away in a small work vehicle and do unthinkable things to you. The man, usually white, middle aged and wearing overalls of some description, sounded working class that was about it.

The problem with this was that you would also get a visit from an incredibly kind looking and sounding female police officer who would show you this film and tell you that if you were good you could grow up and be a policewoman just like her (as long as you didn’t get caught in the clutches of a handyman with a litter of puppies).

ABOVE: Juliet Bravo - kind and unassuming eighties British WPC (woman police officer) and hero to many British female police officers in their forties.

Admittedly, it seemed like a pretty good call to action to me not to be a victim of a nefarious Willy Wonka-esque villain and then become a police officer (both ticked off the list) but now I think about it, this messaging was more dangerous than the potential risk itself. What this messaging created was a sense that strangers were indeed the only danger. They were only white middle aged men. They could not be a friend of the family, a woman, a relative or anyone you had trust in. They were not your football coach, a friendly children’s presenter, a pop star or the postman. They only were exactly as we were told. A male white stranger. 

The vast swathes of reports of historic child abuse admittedly wore me and my team out (Operation Yewtree was unprecedented and harrowing). In every police force in the UK at the time of this national crisis there were unprecedented media inquiries. We learnt of all the horrific details of all the victims and those who turned a blind eye. We also learnt that it was those among us that were also committing this hateful crimes. Police officers, judges, senior politicians, famous and beloved TV hosts. It was too much to take at times and it made me suspicious of everyone I had ever worked with. 

The problem was, the UK had raised a generation of children to think that unless a person was a stranger then they were not committing a crime and that if they did tell, they would be treated as liars and not taken seriously. The sad fact of the matter is that this came to pass. So many adult victims were given bad advice and it caused untold damage some twenty or thirty years later.

This brings me back to the point of powerful language. The words we use as communicators are important and vital to shifting public opinion and consciousness. The positive side of this is that if everyone were to look at the language they used in a public setting, then good things could happen collectively. Shifting the narrative slightly would have an amazing effect on the way things like crime, criminals and public safety are perceived. 

It is no understatement to say that the way a group of police communicators deal with a contentious issue can in fact have an impact on the global view of a country - as it did when we responded to those particularly challenging policing issues. If there is one thing any country is judged on it is their handling of healthcare and public safety. It is important to always have this in mind when you craft a press release or respond to a social media post.

Your words as a professional communicator carry weight. Your power is your strength, so use it wisely.