Storytelling has always been central to movement building and successful campaigns. Now in the face of an increasingly complex and fragmented media environment, being strategic about how we tell our stories is more important than ever. Creating a strategy to frame an issue, build an inviting brand and distill our messages into the right memes are critical to helping campaigns generate the critical mass of popular support to win.
Story-based strategy can be used to deconstruct opposition narratives as well as craft our own stories by focusing on a few key elements of effective social change storytelling.
The Conflict: What is the problem we are addressing? How is it framed? What aspects are emphasized and what is avoided? How can we reframe to highlight our values and solutions?
The Characters: Who are the characters in the story? Do impacted communities get to speak for themselves? Who are cast as villains, victims and heroes?
Show Don’t Tell: What is the imagery of the story—what pictures linger in our minds? How does it engage our senses? Is there a potent metaphor that describes the issue?
Foreshadowing: What is our resolution to the conflict? What vision are we offering? How do make the future we desire seem inevitable?
Assumptions: What must be believed in order to believe the story is “true”? Does our opponent’s story have unstated assumptions we can expose and challenge? What assumptions and core values do we share that unite our communities around a common vision?
Find out more on each of these aspects by clicking on the respective links in the bold titles.
