Human rights scholarship has seen an increase in the adoption of experimental research methods, particularly to understand the drivers of public opinion. For example, using experiments, scholars have highlighted the power of the media and framing on social norms, prejudice, tolerance and respect for human rights. Other experiments have shown that Americans support cutting aid to punish human rights violators, and that international human rights doctrines affect state behavior by shifting public opinion on rights practices.
Our own research uses experiments to examine what kinds of human rights advocacy campaigns succeed in changing people’s minds and mobilizing them to act.
Our own research uses experiments to examine what kinds of human rights advocacy campaigns succeed in changing people’s minds and mobilizing them to act. In the experiment, we designed mock campaigns (under the name of a fictitious human rights organization) to test the efficacy of the most common messaging strategies (or frames) used by human rights organizations. One third of the people who participated read a campaign ad with a personal frame, which emphasized an individual story of victimization. Another third read an informational frame designed to educate the audience on the issue. The final third read a motivational frame, emphasizing the audience’s agency to make change.
