Story-based StrategyHarnessing the Power of Narrative for Change

Advanced Practitioner’s Pre-Training WebinarMay 2011

We are made of stories

Truth vs. Meaning

The currency of narrative is not truth, it is meaning

Narrative

narrative (from the Proto-Indo-European root gn -, toknow): a story or account of events, sequenced overtime and space; a fundamental cognitive structuringprocess for the human mind to make meaning andrelate with the world.

NARRATIVE ANALYSIS OF

POWER

STORY-BASED

STRATEGYSTRATEGY

Consent Theory ofPower

Narrative Power Analysis

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

Frame:“schemata of interpretation”(Goffman, 1974)

Frame-alignment: a process to explainsocial movement theory(Snow & Benford, 1988)

Core framing-tasks:1. Diagnostic framing for the identificationof a problem and assignment of blame2. Prognostic framing to suggest solutions,strategies, and tactics to a problem3. Motivational framing that serves as a callto arms or rationale for action

Frame:

The larger story that shapes understanding ofinformation, experiences, and messages; the structureand boundaries of a narrative that defines point-of-viewand power. Frames operate as pre-existing narrativelenses in our minds.

“Loots” “Finds”

Meme“A unit of self replicating cultural information”

Contagious ideas, stories, images, and rituals that spread from imaginationto imagination, generation to generation, shaping and shifting human cultures…

a capsule for a story to spread…

Elements of Story

Conflict

Characters

Imagery/Show Don’t Tell

Foreshadowing

Underlying Assumptions

Audience

Who are you trying to talk to?

What do they value?

What do you want them to do?

How do they get their information?

Story-Based Strategy

The “shadow” audience

Creating the fishbowl

Reframing Jobs vs. Environment

Characters

Which characters are inthe frame? Which aren’t?

Foreshadowing

Framing with Vision

Design: Framing Narrative

ELMERHERE

Meme Campaign

Challenging Assumptions

Points of Intervention

Points of Intervention

Making the Invisible Visible

Point of Assumption

War

or

Occupation?

Disrupting your Opponent’s Frame

Interventions: Re-Framing

Re-Purposing Existing Narratives

Using Pop Culture

Encapsulate Frame as Meme

story Amplify

Reframe/Build Alliances

Mobilize

Organize

In order to achieve deepinstitutional change, we must shiftmeaning in the dominant culture

Story-based Strategy

In order to achieve deepinstitutional change, we must shiftmeaning in the dominant culture

Culture is made of stories & memes

Story-based Strategy

In order to achieve deepinstitutional change, we must shiftmeaning in the dominant culture

Culture is made of stories & memes

Stories are founded on assumptions

Story-based Strategy

In order to achieve deepinstitutional change, we must shiftmeaning in the dominant culture

Culture is made of stories & memes

Stories are founded on assumptions

Intervention in stories can shiftassumptions -- and contest dominantculture -- to help achieve fundamentalchange.

Story-based Strategy

A call to innovation…

o Facing the Slow-Motion Apocalypse

o Harnessing psychic breaks

o Towards Ecological Justice…

www.smartMeme.org