Is politics in its Love Island era?

There's a contradiction in the way we consume news. We're bombarded with notifications that the world is getting worse, yet we're surrounded by evidence of people challenging the status quo, questioning institutions and actually succeeding in changing things. The oldest trick in the journalism book is the fact that outrage makes for a much better headline than progress and with several hours of scrolling, it's true more than ever.

Our Hope Gap report explored the distance between the social progress we know is possible and the reality people experience. It's a gap influenced by the information we consume, the expectations we have of things and whether we believe change is achievable.

This week, two stories have brought that into focus. One concerns Britain's historical responsibility for slavery, while the other involves an American politician receiving Love Islander level of internet attention. Both these headlines tell us something interesting about hope.

The debate around slavery reparations flooded the headlines, discussing the question of whether Britain today should bear financial responsibility for its involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. Those opposed to reparations argue that people living today shouldn't be expected to pay for actions they had no personal involvement in, while advocates point to the enduring economic and social consequences of slavery and the wealth accumulated through it.

It's obviously a complex conversation, although the speed with which it becomes an argument about money leaves little room to discuss what meaningful repair might actually involve. Financial compensation is one proposal, but so are investments in education, institutional reform and initiatives designed to address inequalities that have persisted across generations.

What does responsibility look like when the people involved in a historical injustice are no longer alive, but the systems and consequences they helped create remain?

It's a question that bears some resemblance to the conversations we have with our clients. Organisations sometimes approach us after something has gone wrong, whether that's a campaign that has caused offence, an internal issue that has exposed a deeper cultural problem or a decision that has damaged trust. Often, the instinct is to apologise, communicate the right intentions and move forward as quickly as possible.

Understanding why something happened, acknowledging its impact and identifying what needs to change requires a willingness to examine uncomfortable truths about how an entire organisation and the systems within it operate. Our consultancy approach is built around helping businesses make informed decisions rather than simply finding the right words to get themselves out of hot water.

The reparations debate deserves that same seriousness, even if the scale and historical circumstances are entirely different. There are legitimate questions about who should bear responsibility and what meaningful remedies could achieve, but dismissing the conversation because financial compensation is contentious, risks overlooking the wider question of how historical injustice continues to shape present-day opportunity.

An apology can be an important acknowledgement, but without a willingness to consider what should follow, it's difficult to see how it changes much. If anything, it makes the “sorry” even more hollow. If there's one thing history teaches us, it's that refusing to discuss the past doesn't make its consequences disappear.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the US midterms have offered a rather different perspective on what happens when people feel represented in the conversations shaping their future.

Among the more entertaining moments circulating online have been edits of Abdul El-Sayed, the Michigan politician whose campaign attracted attention well beyond the usual political audience. Somewhere between discussions about healthcare and the cost of living, the internet decided he belonged in Love Island - I guess that's one way of introducing younger audiences to politics.

The memes are funny, but they also reflect something more interesting about how political engagement is changing. Younger audiences increasingly encounter political ideas through the same platforms where they consume entertainment, exchange cultural references and discuss the things that matter to them. For campaigns accustomed to formal speeches and carefully rehearsed messaging, that creates an entirely different set of expectations about how to communicate.

It also raises a question, the same one to anyone working in marketing: how do you connect with an audience whose culture you don't fully understand?

Now's the time we return to our favourite equation: inclusion = relevance = growth. Understanding a wider range of people, makes it possible to develop ideas, services and communications that reflect their actual lives. The principle applies to any kind of marketing and communications. Political campaigns that recognise the experiences of different communities and communicate in ways that feel culturally familiar have an opportunity to reach people who might otherwise feel disconnected from the political process.

Of course, a viral video is no substitute for policies that improve people's lives, and the popularity of a meme tells us very little about whether a candidate will deliver on their promises. Institutions haven't always been good at making people feel that the conversation includes them.

Relevance depends on understanding the people you're trying to reach, including how they communicate and what they expect from the institutions asking for their attention. If the people making decisions are too far removed from those experiences, even the most carefully developed strategy can end up speaking to an audience that isn't there.

These two subjects raise questions about whether institutions are willing to listen to people whose perspectives have historically been overlooked and whether that understanding can translate into meaningful change.

Our Hope Gap research explored this tension between what people believe should be possible and what they actually experience, including the role that businesses and the media play in shaping those expectations. Hope is difficult to sustain when people repeatedly hear that things are getting worse, particularly if they see little evidence that anyone with influence is prepared to do something about it.

For those of us running businesses, developing campaigns or shaping public conversations, there's a responsibility to understand that influence. The stories we amplify affect what people believe about society, while the decisions organisations make determine whether those beliefs have any foundation in reality.

Hope needs credible information, but it also needs action. At a time when pessimism can feel like the only sensible response to the news, finding evidence of progress, however imperfect, seems a worthwhile place to start.