We are made of stories

Truth vs. Meaning

The currency of narrative is not truth, it is meaning

NARRATIVE ANALYSIS OF

POWER

STORY-BASED

STRATEGYSTRATEGY

Elements of Story

Conflict

Characters

Show Don’t Tell Images & Symbols

Foreshadowing

(Underlying Assumptions)

EXTERNALPhysical/Economic

INTERNALNarrative/Ideological

Power Over

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

“Loots” “Finds”

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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…

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 is pre-existing narrativelenses in our minds.

Foreshadowing

Framing with Vision

Re-Purposing Existing Narratives

Repurposing Pop Culture

Making the Invisible Visible

Points of Intervention

War

or

Occupation?

story Amplify

Deepen Analysis/Connect

Mobilize

Organize

A call to innovation…

o Facing the Slow-Motion Apocalypse

o Harnessing psychic breaks

o Towards Ecological Justice…

www.smartMeme.org