Narrative Work Feels Hard Right Now. This New Tool on Narrating Racial Justice Can Help
A new decision-making tool from Berkeley Media Studies Group and Narrative Initiative can help you and your partners navigate that uncertainty and overcome decision paralysis.
Thinking Long-Term: What 2025 Taught Us About Narrative Power
We want to end the year with this reading list, featuring some of the best thinking in the field on power building, narrative infrastructure, and resource organizing for narrative change.
Fire and ICE: A Close Look at the Narratives that Emerge When Immigration Enforcement and Disaster Relief Collide
ICE’s detention of firefighters responding to the Bear Gulch Fire – the largest wild fire recorded in the Olympic Peninsula – ignites a powerful conversation on immigration enforcement and its cost to all of us.
“Flooding the zone”: On Narrative Power during Climate Catastrophes
A close look at the harmful and helpful narratives that emerged during the Texas Floods of July 2025–and what they can tell us about the narrative power needed for a true, pluralistic democracy.
Harmful versus Helpful Narratives
How do you know if a narrative is harmful or helpful? It depends on who gets to decide. At Narrative Initiative, our approach is simple: a helpful narrative is one that advances your vision, mission, and goals. A harmful narrative is one that undermines them. That’s it. Using the terms “helpful” and “harmful” implies a […]
Engaging Organizers on Climate Migration: How do we create Content to Grow Our Audiences With/Behind/to Push Our Solutions?
It’s hard not to feel overwhelmed by the dismantling of our government and attacks on those who are speaking out for democracy and justice. But this is exactly the moment when narratives of determined collective action can generate hope. For those of us working within climate justice and immigrant justice movements, the stakes could not […]
The Narrative North Star: How building alignment on a shared worldview can strengthen movements
Narrative alignment can be a force for evil, or a force for good. We see how corporations, politicians, influencers, media, and talking heads can echo the same worldview. They may have different ways of talking about it. Some are more coded, and some are more outright. But at the core, there is alignment around a […]
Narrative Power in Crisis: How to Narrate Towards Action
A key element of the Trump administration’s strategy is to convince the public that the MAGA movement is unstoppable. They will broadcast the message that “No one can beat us” with each advance, whether the arena is legal, journalistic, educational or civic. They will be doing this on multiple issues simultaneously, hoping to send community, […]
DIY Narrative Research Methods in Narrative Organizing
Narrative change is an essential tool for our movement. As narrative organizers seek to build a vibrant and equitable democracy where everyone belongs and everyone has a voice, we need to overcome a few obstacles that, while not insurmountable, will require practice! We must evolve the stories about our communities at the helm of how […]
Orienting Together: Mapping your Narrative Landscape
Imagine your roommate asks you to plan a road trip. Logically, you ask them where you’ll depart from and where you’re headed. In response, you hear “I don’t know.” At this point, you weigh your options – you could just throw a couple of darts at a map and find the most efficient line that […]
Narrative Organizing: How we shift power towards justice
Narrative organizing is the act of building, creating and using narrative to shift power towards justice, equity and democracy. Narrative without organizing is a collection of observations and stories. Narrative without organizing leaves narrative power to others. When we bring alignment, polyvocality, and community leadership to narrative work we are organizing people to hold and […]
Narrative and COVID-19: Resources and reading lists
The Coronavirus pandemic is shaping (and being shaped by) narratives. These articles, essays, research and resources offer insights into narrative change strategy in the context of COVID-19. In BC times (before Coronavirus) we talked about how populism and the untenable state of neoliberalism created an opening to shift deep narratives. COVID-19 has widened the space […]