Narrative Change

Public Opinion + Strategic Storytelling + Narrative Power

About

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 a barrier to social change, narrative change is a strategy to remove that barrier. Narrative change isn’t used by organizations that are aligned with public opinion.

  • Press coverage, including op-eds.

  • Publishing research that reveals data to influence opinion.

  • Spokespeople and personal stories from people who are affected.

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

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

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 but there is no precise measure of narrative change. When narrative change is successful, campaigns are successful that were previously unsuccessful.

Narrative change is not new, but the current media environment is.

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

Practical Guides

How to Measure Narrative Change
Stanford Social Innovation Review

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.

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

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.

Published by Columbia Business School in 2020.

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

Education

Essentials in Public Interest Communications
Center for Public Interest Communications

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

Organizations

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.

“FrameWorks collaborates 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.

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

Drug Addiction

Immigration

Labor

Math

Ocean Conservation

Philanthropy

Poverty

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