Building Healthy Communities Narrative Change Project

The goal of the Building Healthy Communities (BHC) Narrative Change Project was to assess how the Budget Our Values campaign, as well as related criminal justice reform and reinvestment issues, appeared in media narratives in four Northern California counties in 2017. The Budget Our Values campaign worked to make the case for investing Proposition 47 savings in prevention, economic development, equity, and local criminal justice reform measures – since often upstream investments in prevention are underfunded, and community resources are directed solely to downstream approaches focused on treatment or punishment.

Analysis from PHI’s Berkeley Media Studies Group examined print and online news, television news, and Twitter posts that appeared in 2017 and found an increase in the media discourse around criminal justice reform and reinvestment. These findings support the value of continued investment in community-level training and support around media advocacy and engagement.