Written by Gordon Meredith
Whether it was due to 60 countries and half the world’s population heading to the election polls, the exponentially increasing impact of both social media and artificial intelligence, or the continuing challenge of climate change, 2024 was billed as a year for mass disruption.
And while the sentiment was similar from a communications perspective, many aspects of the past twelve months did not develop the way many expected.
To close out the business year, the team at Banksia has performed a reality check on five of 2024’s most topical communications myths.
Myth 1 – Social media is no longer an effective communication tool
Reality Check – More people are using social media than ever, and as such businesses should pay attention to the forums in which their specific audiences are spending most of their time.
Amongst a flurry of final sitting week passed bills, the Albanese Government’s “Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024” gained headline status. The new legislation will place the onus on social media platforms – including Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and X – to take reasonable steps to prevent Australians under 16 years of age from having accounts. The bill has also played a part in endorsing a notion that social media is an unsafe digital space, or at the very least – unproductive.
Despite this connotation, the number of social media users continues to grow with 60% of the world’s population engaging with at least one platform currently, and the global user base predicted to surpass five billion by the end of 2024.
Furthermore, in Australia, social media will soon overtake television as the nation’s most popular news medium, with the majority of people from Generations X, Y & Z choosing to access the news from an online source rather than a “traditional medium” such as TV, radio, or print.
The implication for communicators will be a renewed commitment to developing effective content for your intended audience’s most popular platform.
While press releases might be the easiest to execute, they are of limited value if fewer people are accessing them. Compelling videos and audio, sharable infographics, and prompts that engage social media’s fostering of community need to be added a communicator’s toolkit for the foreseeable future.
Myth 2: Artificial Intelligence will take over the media and communications industry
Reality Check – Artificial Intelligence is still currently best suited to making your communication processes more efficient but will have limited impact in making your strategies or content more effective and engaging.
Just like social media, the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has dominated media headlines with both enthusiasm and concern. Away from the sci-fi fantasies of a fully automated world or the doomsday predictions of robots stealing our jobs, a nuanced reflection of the role of AI in communications highlights both potential and pitfalls.
When considered as an extension to our current digital toolkit, AI can be implemented in way that allows synergies to occur between information gathering and documentation processes, or even a substantial reduction in administration tasks. Global research conducted by GitHub revealed that when paired with an AI ‘copilot’, digital workers demonstrated a 55% increase in task completion speed while also reporting heightened job satisfaction.
The efficiency of an execution, however, does not always reflect its effectiveness. AI’s ability to synthesise and compact information also re-enforces a homogenisation that the model requires to maintain its efficiency of output. Put simply, if you use a “robot” to try and develop your messaging, it will sound like a robot wrote it. Your ability to cut through the noise of information that customers and the public receive will also be lessened.
The takeaway isn’t that AI will kill the communications industry or make us poorer communicators – it’s that we must use the developing technology in a considered fashion, so that AI is working for us, not us for it.
Myth 3: The public doesn’t have an appetite for nuanced policy communication
Reality Check – Trust in information is at an all-time low, and as such communicators will have to work harder and smarter to build trust.
The role of communications in achieving positive social impact has never been more critical, nor more difficult. Challenges such as climate change policy, the renewable energy transition or the housing crisis do not just have technical hurdles, they also have communication barriers to negotiate.
According to the University of Canberra’s (UoC) ‘Digital News Report’, concern about misinformation in Australia has increased from 64% in 2022 to 75% this year, with topics such as politics, climate change and health policy the most likely to elicit distrust from an audience.
The problem of trust is exacerbated by organisations’ fear that their communications will create negative narratives and ill will, and in turn creates a hesitancy to communicate. The UoC report, however, suggests that the opposite is true.
Audiences are more likely to trust a source, if that source communicates with them more often and if that source is known to them. The level of trust is not impacted by whether the news is positive or negative, and bonus trust ratings are achieved if the source is transparent about who authored the communication and where the information was gathered from.
The era of “no news is good news” is long over. Audiences expect to be communicated to about the issues that affect them. As such, the impetus is on organisations to communicate early and communicate often with their stakeholders. That commitment to open and honest communication will in turn be rewarded with increased trust in your organisation.
Myth 4: Large corporations can no longer achieve positive social impact
Reality Check – Organisations that commit to genuine action have the opportunity to enact lasting positive change.
2024 has been a tough year reputationally for some of Australia’s largest organisations. A Federal Inquiry into price gouging and scrutinised media performances, as well as recent stock shortages due to industrial action has seen Woolworths surge up the rankings of the nation’s most untrusted brands. Meanwhile, Optus remains at No.1, still recovering from its handling of its data breaches and associated customer communication.
The main lesson from the failings of these organisations is to acknowledge that your primary operations must be sound and robust before attempting to embark on any extra initiatives. Failure to do so will make your organisation’s efforts seem tokenistic if you are disrespecting the primary operational objective of your organisation.
It is not impossible, however, for large commercial organisations to achieve positive social impact.
As consumers and employees demand more from their commercial institutions, organisations will face increasing pressures to ensure that their institutional values and purposes match with their operational output. Effectively managing this requirement should be a key strategic consideration for any organisation in their next cycle of planning.
Myth 5: Politics is veering to the right
Reality Check – Politics is being more fragmented, with the voting trends correlating with issues rather than party alignment.
Results from a year of state and local level elections has confirmed a significant trend – that politics in Australia is more fragmented than ever.
While the overall results have been reported as “big wins” for the conservative side of politics across the country, the increasing trend is voters moving away from both the Labor and Liberal-National parties, and towards smaller political parties and independent candidates.
Recent Redbridge polling predicts that a minority government the current most likely outcome of the upcoming Federal Election, with the likelihood of the result being 98% if the election was held today.
Such predictions will keep political pundits busy well into the wee hours on election night, but it also has a tangible impact on how organisations should approach their government relations. With the makeup of governments no longer falling along party lines, the need for detailed and diverse stakeholder mapping will be increased, and more specialised government submissions required on an issue-by-issue basis.
While the political parties may be seeing this trend as an inconvenience, for organisations and citizens it should be seen as an opportunity to bring policy to the foreground ahead of pure party politics, and in turn create more opportunities for participatory democracy to occur.
While 2024 may not have played out the way many of us expected, there is one thing that we can be certain of – that 2025 will be just as disruptive and unpredictable.
If you or your organisation would like some help navigating that uncertainty, we would be happy to hear from you, and to help.
