Project INFLUENCE

Project INFLUENCE tests whether it is possible to influence, through social media messaging, attitudes toward collaborating with opposing viewpoints.

In a targeted population, we measure existing attitudes toward working with people who hold opposing viewpoints. We then test various messaging campaigns directed at the target audience via social media. We finally measure whether any of the campaigns “moved the needle” on the subject attitudes, versus an untreated control group. We then iterate.

The Goals

1. Develop an efficiently scalable system for testing various interventions aimed at influencing partisan sentiment and behavior. Said system can be made available for third parties to test their own approaches.
   
2. Identify messaging that successfully evolves a population’s sentiment toward supporting the need to find workable joint solutions with opponents.

Progress

The project’s “Phase 0.1” launched April, 2022.

• Status:
  • Developed initial approach of measurement system April, 2022. This system is needed to quantify attitudes before and after our messaging campaign, to assess if the campaign had any influence.
  • Launched measurement system in May.
    • Learned well more than expected; was more challenging than planned.
      • Check out one of the unexpected things we learned, tangentially, in this phase.
    • Iterated, refined and successfully completed the measurement system in July, 2022.
  • Recruited resources needed to develop the messaging campaign.
  • Created messaging campaign, with five separate video ads.
  • Identified test region, separated audience into pre-test, test and control groups.
  • Deployed the measurement system developed earlier to confirm anti-collaboration bias in region.
  • LAUNCHED messaging campaign on Meta in April, 2023. As of May 1, have iterated through most of the ad series within the target region.
  • Preparing to shortly utilize the measurement system to assess impact.

You can follow regular updates on Project INFLUENCE in our journal, “Updates and Learnings from Project INFLUENCE.“