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http://www.smartmeme.org - a short presentation about our story-based strategy approach for the progressive communicators network
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Winning The Battle of the StoryNarrative, power, and framing strategies for social change
Prepared for:The Progressive Communicators NetworkBoston, MAJuly 23, 2008
NARRATIVE ANALYSIS
POWER
STORY-BASED
STRATEGY
We are made of stories
Stories help reinforce meaning and values in a culture.
Symbols help recall stories.
People don’t just tell stories. Stories tell people who we are, how to live...
Narrative Power Analysis
Changing the Stories: not what people don’t know, but what they do know =FILTERS
Examining Dominant Stories in US Culture
Power shapes Point of View of the story
Stories can Normalize Power/Universalize Experience/Invisibilize Oppression
\
Meme“A unit of self replicating cultural information”
Contagious ideas, stories, images, and rituals that spread fromimagination to imagination, generation to generation, shaping andshifting human cultures…
A capsule for a story to spread
“Loots” “Finds”
Illegal Aliens
Changing the Story…
The Story of the Battle
Can be limiting frame.
WHAT trumps WHY.
Mobilizes choir,doesn’t organize congregation.
Frames the Conflict (Draws our attention to particular details of the story
and avoids others outside the frame)
Amplifies the Voices of Impacted Characters(Stories speak to us through relevant Spokespeople)
Show Don’t Tell -- Engage Peoples Values (Stresses stories/values over data)
Foreshadowing --Shows the Future/Offers Vision (People will only go someplace that they have firstbeen to in their minds)
Targets and shifts underlying assumptions
The Battle of the Story
Framing
Framing the issue as a clash of values
Characters: Many campaigns are aStruggle for “Whose Story?”
amplifying the voices of those most directly affected
Meme Campaign
ELMERHERE
Speaks to our Values
Sympathetic Characters
Sophistication of message totarget
Engages Values
Foreshadowing
Sets New Narratives into Motion
Foreshadowing
Frames/Reframes the Narrative
Amplifies Voices of Characters
Engages Peoples Values
Show Don’t Tell (Images, Symbols, Pop Culture Icons)
Foreshadowing the Future
Challenges Underlying Assumptions
The Battle of the Story
story Amplify
Alliance Building + Analysis
Mobilize
Organize
InnovateRe:Imagining ChangeR & D
CollaborateInterventions @ Intersections:Climate, War, Water, Social Justice Millennial Generation
AmplifyConsulting, Training & Capacity Building
ConveneGathering leaders Building Communities of Practice
What We Do:
Story-Based Strategy
www.smartmeme.org
