There is a widespread lack of understanding of many of the civic mechanisms that our institutions, norms, and social practices are based around. Think about policies, budgets, infrastructure, but also journalism and influencer culture. Nonprofits have a role in our information ecosystem, to share essential information that can increase public understanding of complex but important topics.
We know that some organizations are uncertain of how to reimagine their narratives when there are so many false and harmful stories being shared at the same time. Our Narrative Resilience Program provides a roadmap for regularly updating narratives to meet emerging needs, whether they require providing key information to audiences as a public good, or more directly countering misinformation. As social change communicators, we share here some of the most prominent dynamics contributing to this problematic state of affairs, and why organizations need narrative resilience.
By narrative resilience, we mean the ability of nonprofits and social movements to withstand, adapt, and respond to harmful narratives and dynamics while continuing to promote values, truth, and frames that align with their mission.
- A frightening climate: Nonprofits and social change organizations are reasonably fearful of the ongoing impact of punitive measures wrought by the federal government, and aligned social groups that are working to halt equity initiatives. Sometimes in an environment of fear, organizations default to silence as the assumed best course of action. In reality, retreat allows more space for harm and slowly cedes the power that equity-based social organizations already hold by minimizing their messaging within the minds of audiences.
Organizations need to identify how to strategically communicate in ways that are safer, and yet do not yield ground. Through assessment of narrative contestation in their sector and guidance in strategic decision-making based on those findings, the Narrative Resilience Program builds the capacity of organizations to leverage narratives that are more robust than ongoing attacks, while simultaneously considering the curveballs that may be incoming. - Crumbling media standards: The changes in the media sector over the last three decades have considerably accelerated in the last five years. We are witnessing shifts in the way audiences consume information—toward social media and streaming services, and away from newspapers and TV. This trend, and the dynamic of shifting from printed and broadcast media to digital content over the last two decades, has had significant consequences for the news and media economy. Additionally, with the dramatic rise of news influencers—independent content creators, many of whom have no previous journalism experience—there is an increasingly low bar for entry into the landscape of news content production.
These combined changes are even more alarming, given that journalists and independent media conventionally play the role of bulwark against authoritarian overreach, as well as government and private sector corruption. This indicates a multipronged challenge that is weakening our society’s ability to tackle injustice, as well as misinformation and disinformation. The Narrative Resilience Program is a recognition of the role that the nonprofit and social sector can play in shoring up the benefits of a comprehensive, reliable, and trustworthy information ecosystem. Through the program, nonprofits strengthen their ability to scan the horizon for impending shifts, and develop the skills to stay one step ahead in a perpetually changing narrative environment. - AI as misinformation multiplier: As AI tools are moving into all areas of public life, our society must reckon with the ways that this impacts the social fabric of our collective knowledge and information sharing. For example, recent reporting has shed light on the consequences of AI slop and other AI tools on public libraries, combined with the impacts of local book bans, which are at the same time, degrading the quality of materials and the ability of library experts to choose compelling content. The impacts will be far-reaching in that these dynamics are progressively weeding out the spaces and contexts in which hard thinking about complex things occurs. Similar trends are occurring with intense pressure on educators to adopt AI, resulting in more “fast but shallow outputs.” These dynamics, which offload the hard work of thinking through difficult things, make us more vulnerable to information manipulation and overwhelm from information overload.
Taking these challenges into account, organizations need to adapt and develop new narratives around their issue areas that can address the lure of technological facility—and productivity—while validating the foundational importance of human thinking, critical analysis, and peer-to-peer engagement in real life, to foster relationships and strengthen communities. This may pose a challenge for organizations whose messaging has often focused solely on issue area and key audience characteristics. Navigating these ubiquitous and rapidly unfolding forces is part of organizational and narrative survival today, and for the future. - Banking on trust: Known as one of the most trusted forces in public life today, nonprofits benefit from a goodwill that is essential for strategic communications across wide-ranging audiences. This gives organizations exceptional authority in a time of increasing distrust of most other sectors. This is the time to capitalize on that positioning and ensure that narratives being shared are robust, durable, and take into account the current and changing circumstances that organizations must navigate today.
- Resistance: Narrative resilience is an active stance of resistance against forces that are working to weaken or erase your narrative through repetition and saturation of mistruths. In a time when false narratives spread more quickly than facts, cultivating narrative resilience is a way to push back against manipulation. It is a way to shift power by refusing to be a passive participant and instead, design a narrative to protect the truth and advance change.
Assessing where your organization stands and adopting practices to grow narrative resilience can help your organization step into the role of contributor to a more complete information ecosystem.
If your organization wants to explore narrative resilience as a pathway to develop a more robust communications strategy that meets current challenges, reach out for a confidential conversation.