A major battleground today is the perception of reality, that is, which narratives prevail and how reality is being told of. Thus, one of the key movement capabilities we need to improve is narrative capability, i.e., the ability to tell stories about “what is happening, who is doing it and why”, which are heard and replicated by society.

Being strategic about our communication means consciously and carefully choosing the story we want to tell and which framing we want to use. Any news, video, manifesto, copy or book can be deconstructed in five different layers: Framing, Story, Narrative, Belief and Values.

• We are defining Story as a tale about particular events and people, having a clear plot and specific characters. Each story gives rise to and draw from narratives.
• A Narrative has a generic plot, with characters roles and outcomes, that both emerge from a set of stories and provide templates for specific stories. Underlying each narrative are one or more key beliefs.
• A Belief is something that is accepted to be true and not questionable. Narratives reinforce beliefs, and beliefs are the cornerstones of narratives. In turn, each belief is based on one or more values.
• Values are our guiding principles, our broadest motivations, influencing the attitudes we hold and how we act. Do have a value map to support in categorizing – you can check out this one, although there are many other ways to do it.
• Additionally, for each story defined, we need to make a conscious choice about its framing. By Framing, we mean deciding the words and images used, based on the associations people make to them and how they affect a person emotionally and cognitively.¹

Using this analyzing tool² allows you to understand better what is being communicated to you and if what you wanted to communicating is actually being transmitted (and how to improve it).

There are two ways to use this framework.

If you are starting from a communicative element already made and want to deconstruct it, you can more easily do it by using the following questions in your most honest and no-judgment self:

• Story
  • Characters: who is doing what to whom?
  • Focus: What is given most importance? What is given least importance?
  • Problem: What is the implied problem?
  • What’s missing: what would you expect to see but don’t? / what is not being told or is a mistery?
  • Solution: What is the implied solution?
• Framing
  • Perspective: whose point of view is being reflected?
  • Foreshadowing: What is the implied best possible outcome? What is the implied worse possible outcome?
• Narrative
  • What narratives are being reinforced? To what extent?
• Beliefs
  • What unhelpful beliefs are being reinforced?
  • What helpful beliefs are being reinforced?
• Values
  • What values are being engaged?

Pick up any princess fairytale from Disney and you would probably find the values of “humbleness”, “honour” and “loyalty”; the belief that woman needs others to be protected and that a romantic hero is the only way to get out of a complex problem; a narrative of a girl isolated and with a big problem until they are saved by a hero. And you can clearly see how liberal feminism and liberal anti-racism have influenced a lot the framing of the most recent stories.

The other way to use this framework is if you want to build a new communication element. For the first times doing it we suggest that you do it by this order:

1. Define a core value and a maximum of two secondary values. At each of the steps below, use these values as a decision metric of what to exclude and what to use.
2. Do a map of all the different current narratives already existing about what you want to communicate. Go from what you and your allies are using to what your enemies are using.
3. Identity the beliefs behind each narrative and cluster them accordingly. Hopefully, for a lot of different materials, after you have done once the step 2 and 3, you can just re-use the work done before.
4. Pick one of the beliefs you want to reinforce, based on your communication objective and the value you choose.
5. Check if there is already a narrative from that cluster that you could use – it’s always better to build on narratives that are familiar to people and you need to have a huge influence to impose a new narrative in society.
6. Build your story now that is based on that narrative! You can use the questions from when are analyzing a already made story, and just answer to them.
7. Decide the different framings you want to do.
8. Review it, using the tool above to analysis your own story (even better if you can put somebody else doing it) and use the “Communication Traps and How to Avoid Them”.

In short, for each story we are telling, we must actively and strategically choose which values and beliefs we want to nurture and which we shouldn’t, selecting narratives that are compatible with those values and beliefs. Of these narratives, the best one to strategically suit our needs is chosen, and different stories can be told based on that narrative in order to sustain and reproduce it. Be aware that in different cultures there are different mainstream narratives and also that similar narratives might be associated with different believes. So, do your best to have different people checking your own assumptions on each step.

Hopefully this framework can support us on being more consequential and smart in the narrative battle of our times.

1.The Framing Nature Toolkit published by PIRC is also full of exercises and examples about how to frame more effectively, although focused on nature, the findings apply to all issues.

2. The first time we saw this tool was in Ulex’s narrative and strategy course, and to the best of our knowledge, we are not aware of any literature on it, although you can find the general ideas developed on works from PIRC and NEON.