Presentation for the
Business Ethics Network
January 27th, 2009

NARRATIVE ANALYSIS OF
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 from
imagination to imagination, generation to generation, shaping and
shifting human cultures…
A capsule for a story to spread

Story of the Battle or Battle of the Story?
Mobilization is NOT the

same as Persuasion

The Battle of the Story:
 Frames the Conflict
(Draws our attention to particular details of the story
and avoids others outside the frame)
 Amplifies the Voices of Sympathetic Characters
(Stories speak to us through relevant Spokespeople)
 Show Don’t Tell -- Engage Peoples Values
(Stress stories/values over data)
 Foreshadowing --Shows the Future/Offer Vision
(People will only go someplace that they have first
been to in their minds)
 Targets and shifts underlying assumptions

Story-Based Strategy
Framing the issue as a
clash of values

Many campaigns are a Struggle
for “Whose Story?”
Amplifying the Voices of those most directly affected

Show Don’t Tell
Campaign Memes

Show Don’t Tell
Using Popular Culture

Story-Based Strategy
Foreshadowing Victories

Alliance Building + Analysis
story
Mobilize Amplify
Organize

production
Points of intervention
destruction consumption
decision

production
Points of intervention
destruction consumption
decision
Point of Assumption

Action at the Point of Assumption
Showing Alternatives

Action at the Point of Assumption
Reframe Debates

Action at the Point of
Assumption
Subverting spectacles

Re-Purposing Existing Narratives
Using Pop(ular) Culture

Action at the Point of
Assumption
War
versus
Occupation
Making the Invisible Visible

Facing the Slow Motion
Apocalypse
A call to innovation…

smartMeme…
Innovates
Re:Imagining Change
Collaborates
Partnership
Interventions @ Intersections
Amplifies
Consulting and capacity building
Convenes
Gathering leaders
Community of Practice

www.smartmeme.org