The document discusses the importance of storytelling in strategic communication, emphasizing how personal narratives define reality and can shift public perception, as exemplified by Ronald Reagan's framing of civil rights. Effective communication connects with audiences emotionally and identifies core stories that resonate, while also considering opposition narratives. It highlights the need for coherent, compelling stories that evoke shared values and emotions, and strategies for defending and enhancing one's own narrative.

1. Dan Hahn
Strategic Communication Basics

2. Emotion
Reich's narratives
Hope Fear
The Triumphant The Rot at the
Few Individual Top
Subject
Many The Benevolent The Mob at the
Community Gates

3.  Your story goes public more quickly and more
broadly.
 Your story, not theirs, defines reality.
 Case in point: Ronald Reagan transformed the civil
rights movement into a story about “activist
judges,” “social experiments,” and the need to “get
government off your backs” without having to
mention civil rights (but old time Dixiecrats “got it.”)
 Upshot: stories can fly under your radar.

4.  You like what I like.
 You value what I value.
 You think like I think
… which implies
 Effective communicators care enough
about their audiences to identify with
their attitudes!

5.  Policy wonks and other head-trippers are a
minority.
 We hold faith, hope, and love in our hearts.
 We hold anger, fear, and disgust in our guts.
 Winning stories go for hearts or guts.

6.  Narrative Fidelity
 Narrative Probability
or in plain English
 Does it hang together?
 Does it ring true?

7.  Has coherent structure, implicit or explicit, from
“once upon a time” to “happily ever after.”
 Has heroes, villains, “damsels in distress,” etc.
clearly defined.
 Is moving, vivid, memorable, rich in
metaphor, has a clear moral, yet is clear enough
that Disney could use it.
 May reframe opposition narratives, metaphors
(see Reagan, above).

8.  Choose a still-challenging issue.
 Identify the opposition.
 Identify their core story (stories).
 Do they have “winning stories” that
 Evoke commonality?
 Touch emotions?
 Hang together and ring true?
 How might you undermine their story (stories) ?

9.  Remain with that still-challenging issue.
 Identify your core story (stories) .
 Do you have “winning stories” that
 Evoke commonality?
 Touch emotions?
 Hang together and ring true?
 How might you defend your story?
 Create or revise your core story and prepare to
share the improvements.