CALS313 - Designing Audience-Informed Messages

Course Description

Effective risk communication involves more than delivering accurate information; it requires making strategic decisions about what to communicate, how to communicate it, who should deliver the message, and when and where audiences are most likely to engage with it. Even well-supported information may fail to achieve its goals if messages do not align with audience needs, expectations, or concerns. Because no message can optimize every desirable quality, effective risk communicators must make thoughtful trade-offs while remaining open to learning, feedback, and adaptation.

In this course, Professors Katherine McComas and Dominic Balog-Way will guide you through the process of developing, refining, sharing, and monitoring audience-informed risk messages. You will examine how communication choices involving evidence, language, framing, storytelling, visuals, and recommendations influence audience understanding and response. You’ll also explore the trade-offs inherent in message design, the role of audience engagement throughout the communication process, and the value of feedback and message testing in improving effectiveness.

Through real-world case studies and applied activities, you will explore how to select appropriate messengers and communication channels, develop messages that support strategic objectives, and adapt communication approaches as audience needs and evidence evolve.

The following courses are required to be completed before taking this course:

• Mapping Your Risk Communication Strategy
• Engaging Your Risk Communication Audiences

Faculty Author

Benefits to the Learner

• Draft your message
• Refine your message through audience engagement
• Share and monitor your message

Target Audience

• Communications directors and PR managers responsible for communicating about risk across their organizations and externally
• Risk communication and country risk teams developing communication strategies before challenges or incidents arise
• Public information officers at health, environmental, and food safety regulatory agencies in the U.S. and Europe
• Risk management leaders at pharmaceutical, chemical, biotech, and energy companies operating in highly regulated environments
• Health, emergency, and public safety managers communicating hazards to the communities they serve
• Executives, operations leaders, and project managers who oversee or coordinate risk communication without formal training in the field
• Technical specialists, analysts, marketers, and professionals in advocacy, education, and public lands whose roles include communicating about risk

Applies Towards the Following Certificates

• Strategic Risk Communication : Core Courses