Cómo mejorar la comunicación multicultural

This article is written by Jess Mathew, Senior Communications Adviser in the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing, Victorian Government, Australia.

• The problem: Traditional government communications may not always consider the unique ways that people with a culturally diverse background would like to be reached.
• Why it matters: In a world with increasingly multicultural cities, it’s important that every person in the community can access the information and services they need to take part in everyday life.
• The solution: Apply these simple principles to make your communication more accessible and inclusive.

Multicultural communities around the world can have diverse needs that traditional communications do not always meet.

When government communication isn’t accessible to everyone, many people are unable to access the services and information they need to take part in society.

In the state of Victoria in Australia, 1.7 million people speak a language other than English at home. Our state’s capital, Melbourne, is one of the most multicultural cities in the world. During the Covid-19 pandemic, we learned what worked to effectively reach multicultural communities and what did not. We found that there was a lot we could do to better our communication efforts.

A new communications guide from the Victorian Government has been developed to share the lessons learned, supported by research and consultation with stakeholders and subject matter experts.

The intent is for it to be used by government and private organisations to improve communications and engagement with multicultural communities.

In our global world, it’s important to learn how to communicate to increasingly diverse audiences. This guide will help you to reach more people and communicate your message better. And many of the guide’s principles, like plain language, ultimately benefit everyone.

Background to the guide

The Better practice guide for multicultural communications was informed by qualitative research, evaluations and many consultations with stakeholders and subject matter experts.

It explains different ways to communicate, depending on your organisation or team’s capacity.

During the pandemic, it became an urgent task to understand how multicultural communities are best reached and communicated with. Despite the diversity of these communities, common threads emerged in their communication needs.

Upon reflecting on what we learned during the pandemic, two key principles were identified. These principles will improve communications for any audience, but particularly apply for multicultural communities.

Two principles for better communication

1. Plain language

Writing in plain language makes information more accessible for everyone. For people with limited English proficiency, writing in plain language makes it more likely they will understand the content. It also makes translations clearer.

A common misconception is that using plain language will “dumb down” your information. This is not the case. Something is in plain language if the audience can:

• find what they need
• understand what they find the first time they read or hear it
• use what they find to meet their needs.

Writing in plain language helps people with high and low literacy. Even people with the highest literacy may be time-poor and have a lot to read. Plain language makes content quicker and easier to understand for readers of all levels.

The guide can help you to start writing in plain language by using structure, short sentences, an active voice and everyday words. You also need to think about your audience.

2. Think about your audience

There is no singular multicultural audience, so it is important to think about who your reader is and what their experience is like.

What is it like to be them? How can they do what you’re asking of them? What will be the outcome and impact of your message?

This principle applies to all the diverse populations in your audience. But below are some points to consider for multicultural audiences in particular.

• How does your audience relate to government? They might have had negative experiences with governments which eroded trust. They might not understand how your government works, for instance the differences between state and local services.
• How will they find your information? They might not be looking at government websites.
• How do they like to receive information? Some people have low literacy, even in their spoken language, and prefer video or audio information.
• What do you want them to do? Will they have to use English websites, forms or hotlines? Is translation appropriate? For example, translating a factsheet about a grant programme might not work well if they need to apply in English anyway.
• Do they really want to read a whole strategy? Would they find a summary easier to understand?
• Are they eligible for what you are promoting? For example, people on temporary visas may not qualify for some social services.
• What is the in-language user journey like? Does your translated content give them all the information they need? Set up interpreter service for hotlines. Link directly to translated content wherever possible.

Case study: Protect your family. Protect your community.

Challenge During the peak of Covid-19 in 2021, market research indicated that young adult men in multicultural communities would be more receptive to public health advice if it was framed as being a way to keep their family and broader community safe from Covid-19.

Solution

The campaign used emotive language along with cues to connect action and positive results in the community to drive behaviour change.

Words like ‘family’, ‘community’ and ‘safe’ were put together with images supplied by real families from multicultural communities. The images used included extended family to emphasise the effect of actions on the broader community.

Demographic information such as location and corresponding languages most spoken at home were used to target and select paid marketing channels.

The campaign was successful, in that it successfully reduced average time-to-test in targeted areas.

How you can learn more

By making a few simple changes, the Better practice guide for multicultural communications shows that reaching everyone in the community is possible. Everyone deserves to have the information and services they need to take part in community life.

You can read and download the guide here.

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