Narrative Change

Public Opinion + Strategic Storytelling + Narrative Power

What is it?

What does it look like?

What’s an example?

What’s it similar to?

What’s it different from?

Why now?

Narrative change is a media strategy used by social change organizations to change public opinion on a social issue. Narrative change is the work of persuasion.

Narrative change isn’t used by every social change organization. If public opinion is an obstacle to social change, narrative change is a strategy to remove that obstacle; sometimes the barriers are awareness or identifying effective solutions, which would warrant a media exposure campaign or investing in research.

  • Press coverage, especially op-eds.

  • Publishing research that reveals data to influence opinion.

  • Personal storytelling to demonstrate the impact of the social issue.

  • Education, such as producing a documentary or funding research.

  • Entertainment, such as producing movies that tell stories to counter public opinion.

  • The National Domestic Workers Alliance uses narrative change as a strategy to win respect, recognition and labor rights and protections for domestic workers.

  • American Dreaming is a research project toward narrative change about immigrants.

  • BROKE is a research project toward narrative change about poverty.

Public relations. While PR works to shift public opinion about a company or public figure, narrative change works to shift public opinion about a social issue.

A campaign. Successful campaigns are specific and have a measurable goal, such as passing a bill or launching a product: when a campaign is successful, something happens.

Narrative change is broad and cannot be measured as precisely as a campaign objective; surveys and media coverage are useful indicators at best. However, when narrative change is successful, campaigns are successful that were previously unsuccessful.

Narrative change is not new, but the acute social division we are collectively experiencing is — and the new media environment is a contributor.

Digital and social media make it easy for people to avoid media that doesn’t align with their beliefs: it’s more difficult to avoid conflicting opinions with fewer media channels and it’s easier to sustain conflicting beliefs when media channels can be avoided without limiting access to news and entertainment.

Narrative change is an effort to use the media to shift public opinion by exposing the public to stories that counter public opinion.

Practical Guides

How to Measure Narrative Change
Stanford Social Innovation Review

Telling a New Story
The Opportunity Agenda

HeartWired: A Strategy Guide for Change-Makers
Wonder: Strategies for Good + Goodwin Simon Strategic Research

Strategies and tools for narrative change.

A four-part framework for organizations to design and evaluate their narrative strategies.

Guiding principles for social justice leaders participating in narrative change.

Designed for philanthropic and backbone organizations who are conceptualizing, planning for, participating in, and/or funding narrative change efforts.

Examining how change-makers have leveraged a heartwired understanding of their target audiences to hasten a tipping point on pressing issues of the day.

Mapping the narratives that affect how people think about, talk about, and make decisions about your cause.

Reports + Resources

Resource Library
Full Frame Initiative

Narrative Change Hub
The Commons Social Change Library

A report describing BLIS Collective’s core hypothesis that durable social transformation requires solidarity and narrative infrastructure.

A case study illustrating how framing, narrative, mindsets, and systems are connected in a process of intentional culture change.

Eight lessons that activists, advocates, researchers, and strategists can apply to enrich and enhance their work to change harmful narratives.

Full Frame Initiative closed operations in 2025, but their resources are freely available online.

A co-created international resource to support those using storytelling and narrative strategies to drive progressive change, including articles, guides, strategies, research and ways to measure impact.

Published by Columbia Business School in 2020.

How to build a narrative-power framework.

Insight into the of production of BROKE, a narrative change project about poverty.

Training

Essentials in Public Interest Communications
Center for Public Interest Communications

A digital credential, including “How to approach a narrative change effort.”

Organizations +
Projects

We’re a cross-movement Solidarity & Action Hub braiding narratives and growing movements to win policy and shift culture.

A creative innovation lab and research center that creates, studies, and showcases media and storytelling for human rights, social good, and civic participation.

Helping movements, foundations, agencies and organizations apply behavioral, cognitive and social science to build better communication strategies for the common good.

“Story-based strategy is a participatory approach that links movement building with an analysis of narrative power and places storytelling at the center of social change.” More.

Collaborating with storytellers, organizations, and coalitions to shift mindsets, change systems, and create a more just world. More.

A media research lab.

“We use creative storytelling and campaigns to move people to remake the world.” More.

“ReFrame builds narrative power to win.” More.

Narrative change to support expanding opportunity in America.

Strategic communication and advocacy.

Messaging, storytelling, psychology and opinion research.

“A strategy hub. We collaborate with social movements to transform deeply held beliefs and values to make equity and justice the foundations of multiracial democracy.” More.

Social Issue

CLIMATE

COVID-19

HEALTH

IMMIGRATION

LABOR

EDUCATION

ENVIRONMENT

PHILANTHROPY

POVERTY

  • Changing The Narrative is a network of reporters, researchers, academics, and advocates concerned about the way  media represents drug use and addiction.