Narratives grow when they’re carried by the people who believe in them first.
Early supporters, including community leaders, movement builders, and engaged communities, help amplify narratives through their networks. Social media makes this even more powerful by allowing narratives to move peer-to-peer instead of top-down. When people share narratives within their communities, they become active participants in shaping and spreading them.
Let’s take a look at the #MeToo movement. Women around the world shared personal experiences of sexual harassment and assault, often publicly for the first time. Each story built on the next, creating a collective voice that reshaped public understanding, challenged long-held assumptions, and pushed institutions to respond. Participatory storytelling at scale turned individual experiences into a global movement.
Repetition is key to making narratives stick. We have seen that narratives gain traction when they are repeated across communities and shared by many voices over time.
So, how can we put this into practice?
-Engage early supporters who are ready to help share a new narrative.
-Reach community members who can carry the narrative into their own networks.
-Encourage storytelling and sharing to build investment, repetition, and momentum.
Participation doesn’t just spread a narrative. It helps turn a narrative into a movement.
Americans across the political spectrum are deeply dissatisfied with the political system. That frustration can be channeled to build support for authoritarianism—or, with the right framing, toward support for transformative democratic reform.
Our new research from the Culture Change Project shows how to meet this moment with practical framing guidance and tactics.
To counter authoritarianism in the present, we need to focus on what is wrong right now while also pointing toward the possibility of a more democratic system in the future. Strengthening critique alongside a clear vision of change helps people see that the current system is not the only option.
Drawing on four years of interviews, focus groups, and survey experiments, the research report offers eight recommendations, including:
→appeal to the ideals behind democracy, not just democracy itself
→affirm the need for systemic change
→emphasize people’s power
→offer solutions that match the scale of the problem
The complementary toolkit from FrameWorks, the Democracy Revival Center, and the Bloc includes a core narrative framework, issue-specific messaging guidance, research-grounded talking points, and application guidance.
Head to the link in bio to read the full report and toolkit🔗
AI is increasingly shaping decisions that affect our lives, but public understanding of how it works and who it impacts has not kept pace. That gap matters.
From healthcare and education to policing, hiring, and social services, AI technologies are already influencing systems people rely on every day. Yet conversations about AI are often driven by hype, fear, or the idea that AI exists separately from human influence—which prevents people from imagining human-centered solutions.
Our latest research explores the mindsets that shape how people understand AI and its social implications. Many people see AI as objective, autonomous, or simply a tool for convenience and innovation. But AI systems are built by people, trained on human data, and shaped by existing social structures. That means they can also reproduce and amplify existing inequalities, especially in communities already affected by systemic harm.
Using focus groups, survey experiments, and interviews, the report identifies framing strategies that help people better understand AI and its role in society. The recommendations focus on defining AI clearly, making human involvement visible, explaining how bias becomes embedded in AI systems, and centering values like justice, transparency, and public accountability.
With the right framing, conversations about AI can move beyond hype and fear and toward accountability, equity, and the public interest.
Head to the link in bio to read the full report🔗
When we talk about social issues, our images often speak even louder than our words.
We may be drawn to close-up photos of individuals because human faces trigger a strong emotional response in our brains. However, when we talk about big social issues like health, aging, race, or gender, we have an opportunity to use the power of images to help people better understand the root of an issue. We can do this by intentionally considering the bigger story the picture is telling.
For example, imagine we are talking about health:
In the second slide, the top image depicts a child deciding what to eat without any context. This often plays into the assumption that being healthy is solely about making better choices.
The bottom image paints a larger picture of health. It illustrates the ways that our environments and neighborhoods shape the food choices we actually have access to.
When our images help people zoom out, we make it easier to understand and support changes to our systems rather than just focusing on changes in people’s habits. By showing the landscape instead of just the person, we can shift the conversation toward collective solutions.
Misinformation is everywhere. How we respond is important.
Right now, false claims and manufactured debates are spreading faster than ever, making it harder for people to know what to trust. We need new ways to communicate that actually build clarity and trust.
In our latest resource in collaboration with the Coalition for Trust in Health & Science, we explore practical ways to diagnose deceptive discourse, respond strategically, challenge false ideas without targeting people, position science as a process of discovery, and show how evidence actually works.
Ultimately, countering misinformation takes more than debunking falsehoods. It requires reframing how people understand information, building critical thinking, and shifting from reactive responses to a more proactive approach that strengthens trust.
Check out the full resource at the link in bio🔗
In these times, certain words may be off the table but strategic framing is not.
Join us for our second Health Justice Framing Forum: Strategic Storytelling in Constrained Environments on Wednesday, May 6 at 1 pm ET.
Dr. Julie Sweetland and Dr. Criscillia Benford will show you how to:
- Use narrative to shift what the public believes is possible
- Reveal systemic barriers without the jargon
- Reach audiences who aren’t yet bought in to health equity
When the words aren’t available, the story still is. Learn how to use it.
Register using the link in our bio.
This International Workers’ Day (May Day), we are reminded that transforming the way we work and building a fair economy demands a shared narrative. Most Americans believe the system is rigged against them by elites, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the workplace. While corporate profits are skyrocketing, working people are struggling to afford basic necessities like rent and food.
In our new research, we found two highly effective strategies for galvanizing collective action to unrig the system and create a fair economy that benefits everyone. First, use the Pyramid metaphor to illustrate structural inequality; and second, call for the 99% to come together to unrig the system. These frames are proven to help build understanding of the system’s exploitative nature and boost people’s sense that together, we can change it. It’s our time to transform work and make sure everyone gets fair return for what they contribute to the economy.
Head to the link in bio to read our latest blog based on our full WorkShift report: Reframing Work, Rebalancing Power🔗
Most people remember the story of Chicken Little, who one too many times told the other animals, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” It got attention at first, but eventually, the other animals simply stopped listening to the predictions of catastrophe. In the world of social change, we often fall into this same trap. By flooding the airwaves with dire statistics and words like “epidemic” or “emergency,” we accidentally trigger compassion fatigue and convince the public that failure is inevitable.
This doesn’t mean we should stop talking about social problems or sugarcoat them. Explaining the nature, scope, and especially the causes of our challenges is essential. However, we must balance those problem statements with proposed solutions. When we describe a struggle in great detail but leave out the “how-to” of the fix, we feed fatalism. People don’t tune out because they don’t care; they tune out because they feel powerless.
The greatest task for us today is not to prove that a problem exists. It is to prove that it can be solved. By balancing urgency (“we can see a problem ahead”) with efficacy (“there’s a way to steer around it”), we offer people both a reason to engage and the hope that their actions will actually work. Together, we can stop feeding the fear of doom and start tapping into our collective capacity to strategize our way out of even the biggest problems.
National polls reveal that worries about polarization have taken the top spot on the list of concerns for people in the United States. In a time of deep division, it makes sense that leaders would try to heal these wounds by calling for unity. But could the word “unity” actually be a trap for those communicating about social issues?
Our findings revealed two competing mindsets: unity through progress (a forward-looking vision that grapples with injustices) and unity through restoration (a nostalgic call to reintroduce past hierarchies). All of us are capable of thinking with either or both of these mindsets, as each one can be activated with different framing and narratives we’re exposed to.
To avoid reinforcing the harmful restoration narrative, we must be strategic. Vague pleas to “come together” can work against your mission. Instead, link division to injustice and show how addressing those injustices is the path forward.
Communicating effectively about overcoming division requires moving beyond surface-level language and carefully understanding the mindsets you activate. Be intentional with your words to ensure they support the values you seek to advance.
In their latest piece for @npquarterly , “How Unity May Tear Us Apart”, FrameWorks’ CEO Nat Kendall-Taylor and director of research interpretation for the Culture Change Project Clara Blustein Lindholm outline the effects of framing on policy support, and what it means for who is included and excluded in a “united” America.
Head to the link in bio to read the full piece🔗
Our new research brief, Reframing Work, Rebalancing Power, is now available.
In a period of rapid change, a fundamental shift in power toward working people is needed now more than ever. We need to tell a new story about work–one that addresses the longstanding structural issues in our economy and helps people see how we can unrig the system.
However, the possibility of change is often undermined by deep assumptions about work, such as the idea of “self-makingness”—that success is entirely up to the individual. This individualistic thinking (the dominant way of thinking in the US) hides the systemic issues that persist, including job insecurity, stagnant wages, and “occupational segregation.”
Our research shows that the big move we need to make is to connect conversations about jobs with the wider economic system. While people often think about work individualistically, with the right framing, they can see the economy as a human-made system that can be redesigned. By leveraging this structural thinking, we can build support for the collective solutions needed to rebalance power in our economy.
Based on three years of research, we’ve developed three framing strategies that pivot away from the myth of self-made success and toward a focus on how the system works. In our experiments, these strategies shifted people away from “self-made” thinking and increased support for unions, strikes, equitable labor policies, and collective action for change.
Head to the link in bio to read the full brief and toolkit🔗
When we talk about complex social issues, miscommunication is almost inevitable. We tend to assume our audiences share our understanding or can quickly grasp unfamiliar ideas. (We are guilty of this ✋)
Whether the topic is racial justice or health disparities or democratic participation, by using simple language and clear explanations, we make it easier for people to engage with our ideas.
Here are some strategies to help make your messages more accessible:
-Avoid acronyms. When in doubt, spell it out.
-Shorten sentences. Break long sentences into shorter ones. In some cases, this might mean you sacrifice rhythm for readability. That’s okay.
-Use examples. When explaining something complex, describe what it might look like in practice.
When we communicate clearly, we make it easier for our audiences to understand, engage, and take action.
Conversations about the “loneliness epidemic” in the United States are everywhere, but the framing behind it is holding us back.
When we describe loneliness as an “epidemic,” we risk framing it as a medical or individual issue, as if it can be solved through clinical care or personal effort alone. But loneliness is shaped by the conditions we live in, from our communities and public spaces to economic stability and social infrastructure.
It’s also reinforced when we center images of individuals struggling with social relationships, reducing it to something that can be solved by simply “finding a friend.”
Our research shows that many Americans think about mental health as something that happens “inside” a person, driven by biology or a set of lifestyle choices. This way of thinking can stigmatize mental health, making it seem like the concern of some people rather than all people. It also narrows what we define as “treatment,” leaving out many of the conditions we know support mental health, like social infrastructure, economic security, and stable housing.
To meet this moment, we need to tell a different story—one that shifts toward a collective framing of an issue that impacts and shapes ALL of us. Mental health, social connection, and belonging are shared aspirations in which we all have a collective stake and responsibility.
This helps us understand loneliness, away from individual failure and toward the conditions that shape whether connection is possible.
Head to the link in bio to read the full piece with recommendations for telling a better story 🔗
