Choose trusted messengers and channels, with the source visible on every item
Where and through whom will the message travel, with the source visible?
This chapter helps you pick messengers the audience already trusts, who hold the view and speak under their own names, and channels that fit how the audience lives. It sets the attribution rule for the whole campaign: anyone holding any one item can find out who made it and who paid for it.
All stages
Start with who the audience already trusts
The second half of series development decides where the message travels and who carries it. Katz and Lazarsfeld's finding still holds in outline: media messages reach many people through others they know, the informal opinion leaders in a family, workplace, congregation, or street, and those conversations carry more weight than the broadcast. So begin with the trust map from stage two. Who does this audience already listen to on this subject, and which of those people agree with you? Those are your messengers. Then list the channels the audience actually uses, and prefer the ones where a conversation can happen.
Messengers who hold the view, by name
A trusted messenger is a real person who already holds the view, speaks under their own name, and says it in their own words. Give them accurate facts and the sources, then let them decide what to say; a messenger reading your script is your advertisement with their face on it. Tell them who funds the campaign and what you are asking the public to do, and accept that some will decline or will put it differently.
State the relationship wherever they appear: partner, volunteer, staff member. If a messenger receives money, goods, or anything else of value, the disclosure goes on the item itself, where the audience will see it, in plain words. Check the endorsement and advertising rules that apply to you and treat them as a floor.
Coalitions in the open
Working through partners is legitimate when the audience can see the partnership. Publish the members, the funders, and who decides. Each partner speaks as itself, and jointly made items say so.
The covert variant of this stage is a group created or steered to look independent of its sponsor, or a set of speakers presented as unconnected when they are coordinated and paid. It exists, it has a long record, and it is off limits here. The tobacco industry's use of seemingly independent scientific voices to manufacture doubt, and the network of accounts linked to the United States military that platforms removed in 2022, both ended in exposure, and exposure of that kind costs a sponsor credibility for the true things it says afterwards. The defensive chapter for this stage explains how hidden sponsorship is traced.
Every item attributable
Choose channels for fit, not reach: where the audience already is, in a language and format they can use, at times they are free. For each channel write down how the source will be visible on every single item: a name on the flyer, a paid-for-by line on the advertisement, the organisation's own account for posts. Platform rules on political and issue advertising, and on authenticity, are a minimum; follow them and do not look for ways round them.
Supporters who want to share should share as themselves, in their own words, using material that carries your name. Do not hand out identical text to be posted as personal opinion, and never ask anyone to conceal their connection to you. The test for the whole plan is simple: could a member of the audience, holding any one item, find out who made it and who paid for it in under a minute?
Techniques at this stage, and where the line is
A messenger with real, relevant expertise, who states their credentials accurately and speaks within them.
The line: Borrowed or irrelevant credentials, or an implied institutional endorsement that was never given, turn authority into a prop.
Accurate statements of what peers actually do or think, with the source of the figure given.
The line: Manufacturing the appearance of numbers, or of independent agreement, is fabrication of evidence about other people.
People reasonably look to informed peers. Equip those peers with accurate facts and sources they can check and pass on.
The line: Feeding peers claims they cannot check, in order to borrow their credibility with friends and family, abuses that trust.
Ordinary members of the audience speaking for themselves, named, with their relationship to the campaign stated.
The line: Staff or paid spokespeople presented as unconnected ordinary citizens deceive the audience about who is speaking.
Testimony from someone who had the experience and holds the view, with any payment or benefit disclosed on the item.
The line: Scripted, compensated, or invented testimony presented as spontaneous is the manipulative form.
A messenger's good standing transfers to the message, so choose people whose trust was earned on this subject.
The line: Using fame or general goodwill to carry a claim the messenger is in no position to judge exploits the halo.
There is no honest use. The honest counterpart is a disclosed coalition with published members, funders, and decision-making.
The line: Any body whose real sponsor is hidden from the audience is over the line from the moment it speaks.
Worked example
Fictional example, continued. The Riverside Health Partnership has its message sheet. Its research found that parents trust their child's own doctor, the school nurse, and other parents, and trust county government least.
- 1Messengers: Dr Amara Okafor, a paediatrician at Riverside Family Clinics; Luis Mendez, school nurse at Millrace Elementary; and 14 parent volunteers recruited through the Eastbank Parents Association. All had already vaccinated their own children and agreed to speak under their own names. Two parents who were asked said no, and nobody pressed them.
- 2Each messenger receives the fact sheet with its sources and writes their own words. Dr Okafor rewrites her draft to add what she tells parents in clinic: you can ask to space the shots.
- 3Parent volunteers receive a 25 dollar grocery voucher for each clinic session they help at. Their printed cards and any posts they make say: I volunteer with the Riverside Health Partnership and receive a small voucher for my time.
- 4A coalition page on the county website lists the four partners, the 48,000 dollar budget and its two funders (the county general fund and a state immunisation grant), and a contact for complaints.
- 5Channels: a letter from each school nurse on school letterhead that names the Partnership; clinic text reminders to families who had already opted in; the parish bulletin; the parents association's own group chats, posted by named volunteers; local radio; and paid social advertising labelled: paid for by Riverside County Health Department.
- 6A contractor proposes community pages that leave the county's name off, to get around low trust in government. The lead refuses. The county's name stays on every item, beside the partners the audience does trust.
Outcome. A channel plan in which every line lists the messenger, the channel, and the exact disclosure wording that will appear on the item.
Messenger and channel plan
Complete this for each segment. If a disclosure line is blank, the item is not ready. Saved in this browser only.
Name, role, why this audience trusts them, and their relationship to the campaign.
Every box must be true of every messenger.
Who receives what, and the exact disclosure wording the audience will see.
Members, funders, who decides, and where this is published.
For each channel: why it fits this audience and how the source appears on every item.
Material that carries your name; no supplied text to post as personal opinion.
Can someone holding any single item find out who made it and who paid for it within a minute?
Ethics gate: Phase III, series development (channels and messengers)
0/7If any of these is not true: Stop. Add the disclosure, or drop the messenger, channel, or tactic. If trust in the real sponsor is too low for the message to land, the remedy is a more trusted partner speaking openly as itself, never a hidden sponsor.
Common mistakes
- ×Choosing messengers the team admires instead of the ones the audience named.
- ×Scripting the messenger, which removes the reason for having one.
- ×Putting the disclosure on a web page nobody visits and leaving it off the item people actually see.
- ×Leaving an unpopular sponsor's name off because the message is true anyway.
- ×Supplying copy-and-paste posts, so that supporters look coordinated because they are.
Who is really speaking, and how did this reach me?
Related
References
- Katz, E., & Lazarsfeld, P. F. (1955). Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communications. Free PressThe two-step flow: media influence passes through informal opinion leaders in personal networks.
- Baker, S., & Martinson, D. L. (2001). The TARES test: Five principles for ethical persuasion. Journal of Mass Media EthicsAuthenticity of the persuader: the speaker must actually hold the view and be open about who they are.
- Federal Trade Commission (2023). Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (16 CFR Part 255)Material connections between an endorser and a sponsor must be disclosed clearly and conspicuously.
- Oreskes, N., & Conway, E. M. (2010). Merchants of Doubt. Bloomsbury PressThe documented use of seemingly independent experts and bodies to carry a sponsor's message, and how it was exposed.
- Graphika & Stanford Internet Observatory (2022). Unheard Voice: Evaluating Five Years of Pro-Western Covert Influence OperationsA covertly attributed network was detected and removed by platforms, and achieved little engagement.
- Joint Chiefs of Staff (2011). Joint Publication 3-13.2: Military Information Support Operations (7 January 2010, incorporating Change 1 of 20 December 2011)Doctrine treats attribution as a decision to be made and approved for every product; this manual permits only open attribution.