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Re:Imagining Change: How to Use Story-Based Strategy to Win Campaigns, Build Movements, and Change the World
Providing resources, theory, hands-on tools, and illuminating case studies for the next generation of innovative change-makers, this unique book explores how culture, media, memes, and narrative intertwine with social change strategies. Re:Imagining Change is an inspirational inside look at the trailblazing methodology developed by the Center for Story-based Strategy. This new, expanded second edition includes even more examples from the front lines of social movements and links the reader with an online tool kit to help change the stories they care about most.
224 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2010
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May 5, 2010
When you're trying to change the world or or challenge some powerful people, one of the first questions you'll ask is, "How?" There's all kinds of schools of thought, from the Saul Alinskys, to the trainings like GRO, so when I first came across the smartMeme folks years ago at a conference, I sort of put them in the back of my head because they seemed a little wonkish. However, years later, I came across this book and decided to give it a shot since knowing some strategy in campaigns never hurts.
This book, "Re:Imagining Change: How to use story-based strategy to win campaigns, build movements, and change the world" by the smartMeme folks changed my mind. It makes sense. The basics is that when you're embarking on a campaign to win change, you need to redirect the overall story. For instance, in the whaling industry, if the dominant story is that whales are monstrous beasts and whaling is a romantic profession, your job is to change that story through attacking that story. Through various points of intervention, like where the decisions are made, where the story is consumed, where it is produced, you can get a story to the point where people see whaling, for instance, as a barbarous attack on mostly harmless creatures. Or changing the story of the conquest of native americans, bringing to abuses by large corporations by defaming their brand, or in general moving public opinion against a target or idea and for a group or idea by the use of story.
Pretty interesting stuff and a good read for anyone who's interested in thinking about strategies of social change and how to make things happen that make the world a better place.
This book, "Re:Imagining Change: How to use story-based strategy to win campaigns, build movements, and change the world" by the smartMeme folks changed my mind. It makes sense. The basics is that when you're embarking on a campaign to win change, you need to redirect the overall story. For instance, in the whaling industry, if the dominant story is that whales are monstrous beasts and whaling is a romantic profession, your job is to change that story through attacking that story. Through various points of intervention, like where the decisions are made, where the story is consumed, where it is produced, you can get a story to the point where people see whaling, for instance, as a barbarous attack on mostly harmless creatures. Or changing the story of the conquest of native americans, bringing to abuses by large corporations by defaming their brand, or in general moving public opinion against a target or idea and for a group or idea by the use of story.
Pretty interesting stuff and a good read for anyone who's interested in thinking about strategies of social change and how to make things happen that make the world a better place.
November 28, 2010
In a November 2009 editorial in In These TImes magazine, reflecting on the right’s success at re-framing the health care reform debate in its favor, Kevin O’Donnell writes, “When it comes to messaging, Republicans believe in science. Democrats don’t.” To their detriment, “Democrats cling to the idea, disproved by science and electoral experience, that if you present the facts, people will reason their way to the right conclusion.” Republicans, on the other hand, know to use “simple words, short sentences and a heavy dose of repetition.”
Must one be this cynical in order to win a campaign or a policy battle? Is the way to beat conservatives on important issues to “race to the bottom,” debasing rhetoric, and treating the public as imbeciles?
Fortunately, for those who wish for a more generous understanding of public discourse, Reinsborough and Canning provide another way of looking at “the battle of the narrative.” Like O’Donnell, any experienced activist knows that framing their issue (“how you say it”) matters to the success of their campaign to address the issue. Rather than “dumbing down” progressive campaign messaging, Reinsborough and Canning argue for a story-based strategy that deconstructs dominant narratives and constructs new ones that both challenge the audience’s assumptions as well as move that audience to action.
Reinsborough and Canning succeed at producing a user-friendly guide that brings social change theory from such heavyweights as Guy Debord and Antonio Gramsci to the service of community organizers and progressive movement-builders seeking to create messaging for their campaigns.
The book challenges readers to make praxis central to their work and encourages a disciplined consideration of their target and the broader systems that uphold it. In other words, change is “re:imagined” both by how it is achieved and what it is that can be changed. Just as physical direct action interrupts business-as-usual (a labor strike can literally shut down business), the authors succeed in showing how a campaign has a deeper impact when it also interrupts the the dominant narrative about the campaign issue. The authors introduce a series of concepts that become the building blocks “to win campaigns, build movements, and change the world.” The foundation beneath these building blocks is Gramsci’s notion of hegemony; that powerful interests exert control through dominant culture, such that the status-quo becomes “common sense.” If campaigns are to change the status-quo, the authors argue, they must be communicated in ways that fall outside of the narrative categories that the status-quo have created. The author’s example of Greenpeace’s Save the Whales campaign is instructive:
“Greenpeace campaigners asked themselves, what is the popular understanding of whaling, and where did it come from? They realized that people knew relatively little about whales, and that much of what they thought they knew came from a book that was commonly read in high schools: Herman Melville’s 19th-century novel Moby Dick. The vision of whaling presented in Moby Dick depicts heroic whalers taking to the sea in tiny boats and risking their lives to battle giant, evil whales. But by the 20th century, whaling was an industrial enterprise. Giant factory whaling ships dwarfed the endangered mammals, slaughtering them en masse in a manner that was neither heroic nor risky”.... (88-89).
When Greenpeace activists took action by literally placing themselves between whaling ships and the whales, it “showed it was the activists, not the whalers, who were the courageous people on small boats risking their lives--not to kill hales, but to save them. In this new narrative, whales were not big and evil; rather it was the giant whaling ships that were the dangerous monsters. The whales were the helpless victims and became sympathetic and worthy of protection....The story changed and the roles of hero, victim, and villain shifted” (89).
Going beyond the well-worn discussion of framing, the book utilizes the concept of the “meme,” or a unit of “self-replicating cultural information such as slogans (Just Do It!), iconic images that can be easily referenced (Abu Ghraib torture), catch phrases (“wardrobe malfunction”), symbols (the peace sign), or rituals (candles on a birthday cake) (33). Just as engines of dominant culture create memes, so can social change groups. Especially in the age of the Internet, campaigns can explode with the the clever design and viral distribution of a meme.
Reinsborough and Canning’s work is helpful for analyzing past campaigns and developing future ones. Formatted like a classic textbook, complete with numbered sections of chapters, boldfaced words and accompanying glossary, enlarged text windows, and encyclopedic-like images and captions, “Re:Imagining Change” is an ideal manual for the busy, practical activist.
Its resemblance to a textbook does not make it a stuffy or a chore to read. On the contrary, its inspiring examples of victory, revealing pull quotes, and fast pace situate the reader in a historical tradition of progressive organizing and link the reader’s activism to other contemporary efforts. Thanks in part to the book’s accessible language, anyone who is building a campaign or organizing the community can immediately apply the tools from the book to their work. Indeed, my favorite feature of the book is the “Reflections” box included during or at the end of chapters. An example:
“What are some assumptions in the dominant culture you think need to be changed? Make a list. You can cary this assumption list with you and keep a running tab of times when they show up, or when you surface new ones. Choose one assumption to work with for the moment....Are there institutions where it lives? Are there ways it is felt in popular culture? Now think about actions you could take to challenge that assumption and change the story. Are there physical points of intervention that could expose this assumption?”
Following the instructions in the “reflections” exercise I stepped back and considered a campaign that my organization, Arise Chicago, and other worker centers around the country are engaged in. The fight against the exploitation of low-wage earners is not new, but our “anti-wage theft campaign” is, precisely by the use of the meme, “wage theft.” Before, institutions like the Department of Labor and the mainstream media referred to the phenomena of worker exploitation as “non-payment of wages.”
However, several years ago, worker centers designed the “wage theft” meme. This meme overthrows the dominant assumption that wages are the property of the boss, to be shared with workers. Rather, in this new narrative, wages are the property of workers, that have been stolen by the boss. The wage theft meme is deeply effective, because a common defense narrative spun by an employer caught for not paying his workers is that these are hard economic times; that it is a difficult business climate; that everyone has to tighten their belts; that he’s doing everything he can to keep things running. The public is sympathetic to this defense. The employer is understood as benevolent; he is the job provider, the one who can save our economy--the workers, protesting, are ungrateful! Why, they should be thankful to be employed at all in this bad economy! The audience to this dominant narrative will identify with the employer, who is the one struggling to stay alive in this economy--just like us! The workers are troublemakers, trying to take wages away from the employer, a property-owner, just like you and me!
Alternatively, by using the wage theft meme, workers, not employers, become the victims of the bad economic climate. The boss, not the workers, becomes the unreasonable one. The self-respecting public will identify with the righteous worker, simply trying to stand up for their right to recover their private property. Using the wage theft meme, when my organization fights an employer who is not paying minimum wage, overtime wage, or wage at all, we also are fighting some of the assumptions embedded in the dominant narrative about labor. Accordingly, the media has begun to use the meme when they report on our campaigns, and proposed legislation has adopted “wage theft” into its title.
As the previous example shows, this book has inspired me to evaluate the choices we’re making in designing and communicating our organizing campaigns. Other progressive organizers might strive to do the same. The left is losing the twin battles of the narrative and in the field of many issue campaigns: climate change legislation (it kills jobs), public sector jobs (we have to cut back to decrease the deficit), gender parity (it will result in frivolous lawsuits), etc. Indeed, Sally Kohn of Movement Vision Lab writes that “Over the past year, much of the left has jealously ogled the Tea Party and its apparently up-out-of-nowhere grassroots movement energy.” Kohn locates the origin of this energy in the proliferation of “an attractive story of power and vision—a story in which everyday activists can see themselves and engage.”
That the left needs to develop strong, compelling, narratives, is clear. “Re:Imagining Change” is the resource that can show us how.
Must one be this cynical in order to win a campaign or a policy battle? Is the way to beat conservatives on important issues to “race to the bottom,” debasing rhetoric, and treating the public as imbeciles?
Fortunately, for those who wish for a more generous understanding of public discourse, Reinsborough and Canning provide another way of looking at “the battle of the narrative.” Like O’Donnell, any experienced activist knows that framing their issue (“how you say it”) matters to the success of their campaign to address the issue. Rather than “dumbing down” progressive campaign messaging, Reinsborough and Canning argue for a story-based strategy that deconstructs dominant narratives and constructs new ones that both challenge the audience’s assumptions as well as move that audience to action.
Reinsborough and Canning succeed at producing a user-friendly guide that brings social change theory from such heavyweights as Guy Debord and Antonio Gramsci to the service of community organizers and progressive movement-builders seeking to create messaging for their campaigns.
The book challenges readers to make praxis central to their work and encourages a disciplined consideration of their target and the broader systems that uphold it. In other words, change is “re:imagined” both by how it is achieved and what it is that can be changed. Just as physical direct action interrupts business-as-usual (a labor strike can literally shut down business), the authors succeed in showing how a campaign has a deeper impact when it also interrupts the the dominant narrative about the campaign issue. The authors introduce a series of concepts that become the building blocks “to win campaigns, build movements, and change the world.” The foundation beneath these building blocks is Gramsci’s notion of hegemony; that powerful interests exert control through dominant culture, such that the status-quo becomes “common sense.” If campaigns are to change the status-quo, the authors argue, they must be communicated in ways that fall outside of the narrative categories that the status-quo have created. The author’s example of Greenpeace’s Save the Whales campaign is instructive:
“Greenpeace campaigners asked themselves, what is the popular understanding of whaling, and where did it come from? They realized that people knew relatively little about whales, and that much of what they thought they knew came from a book that was commonly read in high schools: Herman Melville’s 19th-century novel Moby Dick. The vision of whaling presented in Moby Dick depicts heroic whalers taking to the sea in tiny boats and risking their lives to battle giant, evil whales. But by the 20th century, whaling was an industrial enterprise. Giant factory whaling ships dwarfed the endangered mammals, slaughtering them en masse in a manner that was neither heroic nor risky”.... (88-89).
When Greenpeace activists took action by literally placing themselves between whaling ships and the whales, it “showed it was the activists, not the whalers, who were the courageous people on small boats risking their lives--not to kill hales, but to save them. In this new narrative, whales were not big and evil; rather it was the giant whaling ships that were the dangerous monsters. The whales were the helpless victims and became sympathetic and worthy of protection....The story changed and the roles of hero, victim, and villain shifted” (89).
Going beyond the well-worn discussion of framing, the book utilizes the concept of the “meme,” or a unit of “self-replicating cultural information such as slogans (Just Do It!), iconic images that can be easily referenced (Abu Ghraib torture), catch phrases (“wardrobe malfunction”), symbols (the peace sign), or rituals (candles on a birthday cake) (33). Just as engines of dominant culture create memes, so can social change groups. Especially in the age of the Internet, campaigns can explode with the the clever design and viral distribution of a meme.
Reinsborough and Canning’s work is helpful for analyzing past campaigns and developing future ones. Formatted like a classic textbook, complete with numbered sections of chapters, boldfaced words and accompanying glossary, enlarged text windows, and encyclopedic-like images and captions, “Re:Imagining Change” is an ideal manual for the busy, practical activist.
Its resemblance to a textbook does not make it a stuffy or a chore to read. On the contrary, its inspiring examples of victory, revealing pull quotes, and fast pace situate the reader in a historical tradition of progressive organizing and link the reader’s activism to other contemporary efforts. Thanks in part to the book’s accessible language, anyone who is building a campaign or organizing the community can immediately apply the tools from the book to their work. Indeed, my favorite feature of the book is the “Reflections” box included during or at the end of chapters. An example:
“What are some assumptions in the dominant culture you think need to be changed? Make a list. You can cary this assumption list with you and keep a running tab of times when they show up, or when you surface new ones. Choose one assumption to work with for the moment....Are there institutions where it lives? Are there ways it is felt in popular culture? Now think about actions you could take to challenge that assumption and change the story. Are there physical points of intervention that could expose this assumption?”
Following the instructions in the “reflections” exercise I stepped back and considered a campaign that my organization, Arise Chicago, and other worker centers around the country are engaged in. The fight against the exploitation of low-wage earners is not new, but our “anti-wage theft campaign” is, precisely by the use of the meme, “wage theft.” Before, institutions like the Department of Labor and the mainstream media referred to the phenomena of worker exploitation as “non-payment of wages.”
However, several years ago, worker centers designed the “wage theft” meme. This meme overthrows the dominant assumption that wages are the property of the boss, to be shared with workers. Rather, in this new narrative, wages are the property of workers, that have been stolen by the boss. The wage theft meme is deeply effective, because a common defense narrative spun by an employer caught for not paying his workers is that these are hard economic times; that it is a difficult business climate; that everyone has to tighten their belts; that he’s doing everything he can to keep things running. The public is sympathetic to this defense. The employer is understood as benevolent; he is the job provider, the one who can save our economy--the workers, protesting, are ungrateful! Why, they should be thankful to be employed at all in this bad economy! The audience to this dominant narrative will identify with the employer, who is the one struggling to stay alive in this economy--just like us! The workers are troublemakers, trying to take wages away from the employer, a property-owner, just like you and me!
Alternatively, by using the wage theft meme, workers, not employers, become the victims of the bad economic climate. The boss, not the workers, becomes the unreasonable one. The self-respecting public will identify with the righteous worker, simply trying to stand up for their right to recover their private property. Using the wage theft meme, when my organization fights an employer who is not paying minimum wage, overtime wage, or wage at all, we also are fighting some of the assumptions embedded in the dominant narrative about labor. Accordingly, the media has begun to use the meme when they report on our campaigns, and proposed legislation has adopted “wage theft” into its title.
As the previous example shows, this book has inspired me to evaluate the choices we’re making in designing and communicating our organizing campaigns. Other progressive organizers might strive to do the same. The left is losing the twin battles of the narrative and in the field of many issue campaigns: climate change legislation (it kills jobs), public sector jobs (we have to cut back to decrease the deficit), gender parity (it will result in frivolous lawsuits), etc. Indeed, Sally Kohn of Movement Vision Lab writes that “Over the past year, much of the left has jealously ogled the Tea Party and its apparently up-out-of-nowhere grassroots movement energy.” Kohn locates the origin of this energy in the proliferation of “an attractive story of power and vision—a story in which everyday activists can see themselves and engage.”
That the left needs to develop strong, compelling, narratives, is clear. “Re:Imagining Change” is the resource that can show us how.
December 11, 2019
I did not realize what this book was about when I first picked it up - I thought it was more about using fictional stories to change peoples' ideas, but actually it is more about using story-based strategies for campaigns and movements. The book talked a lot about framing, narrative structure, villains, heroes, and victims. I appreciated all the examples given, and this definitely was a great tool for activists. I look forward to attempting to implement these strategies and teaching them to other activists in my circles. The book was well-organized as well, and easy to follow.
July 22, 2010
I will definitely recommend this book to people who are trying to figure out how to put together activism campaigns and create messaging. Very useful easy to dip in and dip out of, and lots of thought provoking questions and examples.
Read
June 18, 2010I've been skipping around this book - so far amazing pull quotes, and great images that illustrate the principals in this book about using the power of narrative to change the story and make society more just.
Now to read it cover to cover.
Now to read it cover to cover.
May 19, 2010
An interesting guide to structuring social justice campaigns around storytelling. Accessible and interesting. I'm interested in using some of their techniques for future campaigns.
September 12, 2010
I'm looking forward to trying this book's story-telling framework out at work.
December 12, 2012
Right up there among the most useful and important books for progressive campaigners to read, digest and frequently return to.
November 7, 2015
Re:Imagining Change
is a very useful little book -- both for activists looking to reframe the issues they are fighting and energize people around their cause, but also I think for critical theorists thinking about praxis. Authors Patrick Reinsborough and Doyle Canning write:
On the one hand it is written simply and is full of charts and questions to really help people on the ground work to create and tell a powerful story about their struggle (and I like that for the authors this is clearly just one component of movement building, and they ask that a politics and ethics of justice and accountability be intrinsic to this approach). They write 'smartMeme uses storytelling to integrate traditional organizing methods with messaging, framing, and cultural interventions'. (12)
On the other, it is also contains some big thinking about discourse, narrative and hegemony. Thinking and theory that has been boiled down into the bare essentials through multiple workshops with a range of organisations around a range of issues. This is what activists working on the ground have found most useful in this theory -- a good way to direct theoretical forces but also ask some questions about where those in practice may be missing something important.
It is in five sections:
For me, and probably this is because of all I have been grappling with and my fascination with Gramsci, there was a long section that I found summarised much of what I have been thinking in a rather satisfying way (and while I have read a lot of Gramsci, I have not read much at all about narrative power analyses or story based strategies, though I have sat through a few press and spin trainings):
Who is heroic? Who is the villain? The answers show 'the narrative dimensions of the physical relationships of power and privilege...' (21)
A nice, simple view of Gramsci:
And what this book is all about -- changing people's minds
I think this is very true, and I also think it shows one potential limitation of this approach -- it is in many ways about asking important questions while crafting stories, but those stories are still mostly for consumption. And I worry that there is not enough on how we know we are overcoming our own filters and our own stories.
Growing up poor, working alongside communities of colour and communities who don't speak English, I have encountered (and continue to encounter) a large number of well-meaning individuals somehow unable to see any member of these groups as equal to them in experience or intelligence, who have believed they had all the answers if only people would listen. They liked to tell stories, to try and educate, to try and convince us that our narrative filters were wrong -- when actually there was nothing wrong with our narrative filters. They just didn't understand our realities.
This kind of approach used without a very deep integrity and commitment to critical dialogue and self-reflection could potentially lend itself to the same patronising mythmaking it is trying to fight. It needs to use both the process of creating stories, and the stories we create, to challenge and educate people to interrogate all such myths and memes for themselves and in themselves. So for example, when they write:
They don't interrogate the reality that in the US it is fairly well-known that many white people only relate to white people -- and of their (self-identified) class or above. Hollywood holds this as axiomatic, immigrants know it, poor people know it, and the #BlackLivesMatter campaign and the ongoing violence with impunity against Black bodies has shown again and again how true it is -- how then do you frame your stories? How do you choose your audiences? How do you ensure sympathy? Who do they mean when they say 'we'?
This small sentence alone raises immense issues and complexities in an American context, because the character that may evoke the most sympathy from the broadest swathe of American society -- and that's a group needing some targeting -- may not at all be the character that should be used, and may in fact prop up the oppressive and all-pervasive racism that exists even though it might be trying to do the opposite in some well-meaning way.
Of course, this analysis would have made this a much longer book.
I think ultimately the point has to be to enable people to resist and deconstruct the power of myths and memes, and to collectively and as broadly as possible build up new and empowering stories. I think this book starts asking many of the right questions, starts thinking about some of the tools to do this. I also think these narrative tools are tools that can be used to move our causes forward and to build movement, and we ignore them at our peril. But I worry about using them too easily.
I kind of like this definition for example:
I like how they outline the craft of telling stories, and their elements: Conflict; Characters; Imagery (Show Don't Tell); Foreshadowing; Assumptions.
This helps think about how to shift the frame, how we start to have the conversations we need to be having about issues of environmental collapse, and social and racial justice. I think perhaps I just wanted a little stronger dose of caution, of Paolo Freire and some of the brilliant work coming out around race and class, of critique and questioning incorporated into story telling and the complexities of that in the world we face today.
Re:Imagining Change is an introduction to the ideas and methods of the smartMeme Strategy and Training Project. We founded smartMeme to innovate social change strategies in response to the movement-building and messaging demands of the globalized information age. We are motivated by the social and ecological crises facing our planet and by a belief that fundamental change is not only possibly, but necessary. (11)
On the one hand it is written simply and is full of charts and questions to really help people on the ground work to create and tell a powerful story about their struggle (and I like that for the authors this is clearly just one component of movement building, and they ask that a politics and ethics of justice and accountability be intrinsic to this approach). They write 'smartMeme uses storytelling to integrate traditional organizing methods with messaging, framing, and cultural interventions'. (12)
On the other, it is also contains some big thinking about discourse, narrative and hegemony. Thinking and theory that has been boiled down into the bare essentials through multiple workshops with a range of organisations around a range of issues. This is what activists working on the ground have found most useful in this theory -- a good way to direct theoretical forces but also ask some questions about where those in practice may be missing something important.
It is in five sections:
Section I - overview of story-based strategy campaign model
Section II - theoretical framework of narrative power analysis
Section III - battle of the story method
Section IV - points of intervention
Section V - case studies
For me, and probably this is because of all I have been grappling with and my fascination with Gramsci, there was a long section that I found summarised much of what I have been thinking in a rather satisfying way (and while I have read a lot of Gramsci, I have not read much at all about narrative power analyses or story based strategies, though I have sat through a few press and spin trainings):
Many of our current social and ecological problems have their roots in the silent consensus of assumptions that shape the dominant culture...
To make real and lasting change...these stories must change.
A narrative power analysis recognizes that humans understand the world and our role in it through stories, and thus all power relations have a narrative dimension. Likewise, many stories are imbued with power. This could be the power to explain and justify the status quo or the power to make change imaginable and urgent.
A narrative analysis of power encourages us to ask: which stories define cultural norms? Where did these stories come from? Whose stories were ignored or erased to create these norms? What new stories can we tell to more accurately describe the world we see? And, perhaps more urgently, what are the stories that can help create the world we desire?
Narrative power analysis starts with the recognition that the currency of story is not necessarily truth, but rather meaning. In other words, we often believe in a story not necessarily because it is factually true; we accept a story as true because it connects with our values, or is relevant to our experiences in a way that is compelling.
The role of narrative in rendering meaning in our minds is what makes story a powerful force. These power dynamics operate both in terms of our individual identities -- whether or not you get to determine your own story -- and on the larger cultural level: Which stories are used to make meaning and shape our world? (20-21)
Who is heroic? Who is the villain? The answers show 'the narrative dimensions of the physical relationships of power and privilege...' (21)
A nice, simple view of Gramsci:
Hegemony operate in cultural stories that over time gain widespread acceptances and reinforce a dominant perspective or worldview. These webs of narratives are control mythologies, which shape a shared sense of political reality, normalize the status quo, and obscure alternative options or visions (22-24)
Referring to these stories as "mythologies" is not about whether they are true or false -- again, it is about how much meaning they carry in the culture. (24)
And what this book is all about -- changing people's minds
A narrative power analysis suggests that the problem is not necessarily what people don't know (the facts). Rather, the problem may be what they did know (underlying assumptions).
In other words, people have existing stories about their world that may act as narrative filters to prevent them from hearing social change messages. (28)
I think this is very true, and I also think it shows one potential limitation of this approach -- it is in many ways about asking important questions while crafting stories, but those stories are still mostly for consumption. And I worry that there is not enough on how we know we are overcoming our own filters and our own stories.
Growing up poor, working alongside communities of colour and communities who don't speak English, I have encountered (and continue to encounter) a large number of well-meaning individuals somehow unable to see any member of these groups as equal to them in experience or intelligence, who have believed they had all the answers if only people would listen. They liked to tell stories, to try and educate, to try and convince us that our narrative filters were wrong -- when actually there was nothing wrong with our narrative filters. They just didn't understand our realities.
This kind of approach used without a very deep integrity and commitment to critical dialogue and self-reflection could potentially lend itself to the same patronising mythmaking it is trying to fight. It needs to use both the process of creating stories, and the stories we create, to challenge and educate people to interrogate all such myths and memes for themselves and in themselves. So for example, when they write:
Audiences naturally look for characters we can identify with. Which characters do we sympathize with or relate to? (53)
They don't interrogate the reality that in the US it is fairly well-known that many white people only relate to white people -- and of their (self-identified) class or above. Hollywood holds this as axiomatic, immigrants know it, poor people know it, and the #BlackLivesMatter campaign and the ongoing violence with impunity against Black bodies has shown again and again how true it is -- how then do you frame your stories? How do you choose your audiences? How do you ensure sympathy? Who do they mean when they say 'we'?
This small sentence alone raises immense issues and complexities in an American context, because the character that may evoke the most sympathy from the broadest swathe of American society -- and that's a group needing some targeting -- may not at all be the character that should be used, and may in fact prop up the oppressive and all-pervasive racism that exists even though it might be trying to do the opposite in some well-meaning way.
Of course, this analysis would have made this a much longer book.
I think ultimately the point has to be to enable people to resist and deconstruct the power of myths and memes, and to collectively and as broadly as possible build up new and empowering stories. I think this book starts asking many of the right questions, starts thinking about some of the tools to do this. I also think these narrative tools are tools that can be used to move our causes forward and to build movement, and we ignore them at our peril. But I worry about using them too easily.
I kind of like this definition for example:
At smartMeme we think of a meme as a capsule for a story to spread. (34)
I like how they outline the craft of telling stories, and their elements: Conflict; Characters; Imagery (Show Don't Tell); Foreshadowing; Assumptions.
This helps think about how to shift the frame, how we start to have the conversations we need to be having about issues of environmental collapse, and social and racial justice. I think perhaps I just wanted a little stronger dose of caution, of Paolo Freire and some of the brilliant work coming out around race and class, of critique and questioning incorporated into story telling and the complexities of that in the world we face today.
September 12, 2018
I can imagine this book being revolutionary when it first came out 2010 - it's a credit to the Center for Story Based Strategy and allied organizations that I now take it for granted "of course you need good narrative strategy" in building a movement.
The 2017 update is sharp and relevant with contemporary examples. The last chapter was a tease, though: we finally got to large systemic campaigns (climate, building on the global justice movement) which is where I think we need the most help... and it didn't quite get there for me. I found myself wanting more. It felt like there were good examples of specific tactics for large-scale movements (e.g. the WTO protests as a set of activities that were part of the larger anti-neoliberalism movement that ultimately evolved into the global justice movement), but not great examples/strategies for sustained campaigns at that scale. Because it's hard, I'm sure, and the aims are more amorphous (smash the patriarchy is a great slogan that's pretty hard to operationalize, e.g.)
Anyway, an important contribution to the literature and a good read for folks who have just realized that facts alone don't win arguments and are looking to round out their toolbox.
The 2017 update is sharp and relevant with contemporary examples. The last chapter was a tease, though: we finally got to large systemic campaigns (climate, building on the global justice movement) which is where I think we need the most help... and it didn't quite get there for me. I found myself wanting more. It felt like there were good examples of specific tactics for large-scale movements (e.g. the WTO protests as a set of activities that were part of the larger anti-neoliberalism movement that ultimately evolved into the global justice movement), but not great examples/strategies for sustained campaigns at that scale. Because it's hard, I'm sure, and the aims are more amorphous (smash the patriarchy is a great slogan that's pretty hard to operationalize, e.g.)
Anyway, an important contribution to the literature and a good read for folks who have just realized that facts alone don't win arguments and are looking to round out their toolbox.
January 3, 2018
I just finished the current edition of this book, updated to include Trump's presidency, the women's movement, Standing Rock, and other current movements.
This was a great read for advice on how to structure storytelling for impact. I was impressed; it's a good read for anyone working in communications (or really any step up the ladder in a progressive organization) who wants to update their message to resonate with people at the gut level.
This was a great read for advice on how to structure storytelling for impact. I was impressed; it's a good read for anyone working in communications (or really any step up the ladder in a progressive organization) who wants to update their message to resonate with people at the gut level.
October 3, 2021
An excellent introduction to campaigning and the power of narrative and sometimes story driven movement building.
The last chapter which explores some of the campaigns they ran is essential reading. In a world where there are new things to learn from the past, this section was priceless.
Check out Chris Rose's 'How to win campaigns' which goes a lot more into the aspects not covered here.
Enjoy!
The last chapter which explores some of the campaigns they ran is essential reading. In a world where there are new things to learn from the past, this section was priceless.
Check out Chris Rose's 'How to win campaigns' which goes a lot more into the aspects not covered here.
Enjoy!
February 19, 2018
I decided to read the 1st edition because it was on my shelf rather than going out and buying the updated 2nd edition. It's always interesting to read slightly outdated strategy books, in my opinion, to see what predictions come true, what changes, and what doesn't. And most of this stands the test of time.
August 30, 2018
I thought this book did a great job of deconstructing the stories we hear and providing practical advice for creating our own effective story-based strategies. I actually finished the book a few months ago and it has really stuck with me and I find myself bring it up in conversations frequently. An empowering read.
January 24, 2019
Overall Impression: This book is full of invaluable information for any activist or other change agent working today. I would highly suggest picking it up if you're in any way interested in social justice movements, the ways information spreads, how governments stay in power, etc. It's bound to make the world around you make a little more sense.
While I personally feel there was some re-explaining of previously established points which could have been trimmed down without harming the quality, it didn't distract so heavily as to make the book drag or make it difficult to grasp. Quite the contrary - the points presented are clearly outlined and explained in ways which are easy to grasp and easy to apply once you have a strong understanding of their underlying structure.
All in all, a bit repetitive in places, but deeply useful for anyone looking to make lasting social change, whether in their local community or on a truly global scale.
While I personally feel there was some re-explaining of previously established points which could have been trimmed down without harming the quality, it didn't distract so heavily as to make the book drag or make it difficult to grasp. Quite the contrary - the points presented are clearly outlined and explained in ways which are easy to grasp and easy to apply once you have a strong understanding of their underlying structure.
All in all, a bit repetitive in places, but deeply useful for anyone looking to make lasting social change, whether in their local community or on a truly global scale.
January 4, 2014
This is a quick and accessible read on using a narrative based strategy for social change. I found it a helpful articulation of different ideas that I have had floating in my head. It was also useful to have specific examples of how to employ strategies and also directions on how to go about it.
I have some apprehensions. But most of them are alleviated by remembering that this is just one strategy in the toolbox. I'm concerned though about what happens when your narrative isn't something palatable because it is so radical and would require a fundamental shift in the balance of power. Also in trying to employ effective narrative strategy, I worry about how it may constrain our imaginations and force us to using the language of the colonizer.
I have some apprehensions. But most of them are alleviated by remembering that this is just one strategy in the toolbox. I'm concerned though about what happens when your narrative isn't something palatable because it is so radical and would require a fundamental shift in the balance of power. Also in trying to employ effective narrative strategy, I worry about how it may constrain our imaginations and force us to using the language of the colonizer.
February 5, 2017
An interesting manual for activism. It got me thinking about the stories of our country, especially those that I've never really thought about. Who tells the story? Who are the heroes and villains? And, does the story really reflect my values and experiences? I want to write a new story that challenges traditional power structures. The book provides a good starting point for groups trying to figure out the story they want to tell.
July 20, 2020
Read this for my Media and Social Movement class. I thought this was a great textbook as it speaks upon contemporary movements- especially now at the peak of the Black Lives Matter movement. Provides a framework to reimagine change and remake our world without bias- great read even outside of class!
September 22, 2014
Excellent little primer to their very clear, powerful methodology.
February 7, 2019
Not a set of step by step guides, but a lot of great frameworks and tools included for emergent strategy and challenging hegemony and changing the narrative for a better future.
October 18, 2020
A little repetitive, but makes a strong argument for why shaping the narrative is key to all social movements, clearly illustrated by recent case studies.
Read
March 18, 2018A book about engaging with story and narrative-based strategy — winning the battle of the story, and relating smartly to narrative to win the campaign — in the context of movement-building approaches to social struggle. It was written by two people involved in a movement organization in the US (the Centre for Story-based Strategy) based on their experience of doing that sort of work in collaboration with a range of local and national groups. I think this is a useful book and one that people with a wide range of movement politics should read and could learn from, though I have one minor and one major caution about it. The minor caution is that at the start and end, and in select spots throughout, it reads as too smooth and too sales-ish for my taste. That isn’t necessarily a problem, but it makes me a bit cautious, because it feels like it’s working a little bit too hard to sell the organization where the authors work, even to the extent in a few spots of resembling the sort of rah-rah foundation grant proposal that I know that sort of organization has to regularly write to survive. And I know that’s part of the game in the US and plenty of organizations that play it do good work, but it’s also a context with well-documented downsides. None of which means the ideas in the book are any less valid, it just makes me a little wary. My more significant concern, though, is about how the ideas in this book will be taken up relative to other elements of movement building. The authors make the point multiple times through the book that narrative-based strategy is meant to be a complement to other core aspects of movement building, not a substitute, but I would bet that more than a few groups treat it as a substitute anyway, mostly because the story-based stuff is often easier and at least potentially less messy, and it in some contexts can give the appearance of effectiveness when the unglamorous work of building relationships, organizations, and collective power isn’t really happening, or not happening enough. Which isn’t the authors’ fault, but is something to be wary of as you put the book’s ideas into practice. Anyway, with those provisos, it’s well worth reading and learning from.
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