How to Use Stories to Bring ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ Together

It’s clear that public discourse in the United States today is dominated by extremes, whether we’re talking about climate change or refugee policy. Many different factors are contributing to the sense that society is becoming ever-more divided, but solving the important social and environmental issues we face nevertheless demands collaboration and unity.

Former NFL fullback and EcoAthlete Ovie Mughelli and the improv comedy group Dad’s Garage participated in a Big Screen Bloc Party in Atlanta, Georgia, featuring a screening of Captain Planet. (Photo courtesy of Exposure Labs)

To make progress in this context, and break down the prevailing “us” versus “them” narrative, social change organizations must find ways to both better engage existing supporters and reach new communities “beyond the choir.” And to achieve that, they must be mindful of how the stories they tell may serve or stand in the way of this effort.

Breaking Our Scripts

Organizations and advocates often recycle the same type of stories, but using the same plot structures, emotions, or characters can reinforce established divisions and hinder efforts to build a broader base of support.

In the humanitarian sector, for example, we often see the same “rags-to-riches” (and its inverse, “riches-to-rags”) stories, which aim to build empathy with refugees or victims of natural disasters, and support for humanitarian intervention. In the education sector, we often see “against-all-odds” stories about people from marginalized communities who overcome poverty to succeed. And organizations communicating about climate change often share “apocalyptic” narratives to convey the need for urgent action.

But using the same story framework again and again not only creates story fatigue among existing supporters, but also means losing the opportunity to engage potential new allies.

This echo-chamber effect is exacerbated by the tendency for people to consume stories that affirm their social identities and disengage when stories challenge them. For example, a study by social psychologist Dan Kahan and his colleagues found that the people most likely to deny climate change were actually among the most science literate. Their research showed that apathy toward climate change resulted not from a lack of information, but from a threat to the participants’ social identities and standing within their social groups.

If organizations are not intentional about how they share stories, they can end up speaking only to people who see the world as they do, thus further entrenching divisions. To fight this dynamic, they need to break traditional scripts by changing up plot structures and emotions, elevating a new cast of characters, and creating experiences that people want to join.

Changing Up Plots and Emotions

It’s important that organizations consider what will resonate with audiences “beyond the choir,” including what plot structure might pair best with the story environment around their issue.

Journalist Christopher Booker has studied stories for more than 30 years and has identified seven basic plots that all narratives fall within: “overcoming the monster,” “rags to riches,” “the quest,” “voyage and return,” “comedy,” “tragedy,” and “rebirth.” Organizations can use these archetypes to think strategically about which plot structures they should use to engage new supporters.  If a topic is new to the audience, an organization may want to pick a familiar plot structure like the “rags-to-riches” or “Cinderella” story that can help them understand the issue dynamics—whose side they should be on and how the story will likely end. If the audience is already familiar with the topic, it might use plot structures different from what people expect to capture their attention and make the issue feel new again. For example, instead of a riches-to-rags story that frames refugees as victims in need of help, an organization might tell a “rebirth” story of a refugee who was able to follow a passion and contribute to their new home. (This story about a Syrian refugee ballet dancer is one of our favorites.)

Choosing the right type of story also requires thinking about the level of organized opposition to an issue. According to the Doc Society’s Impact Field Guide, issues with weak opposition may pair best with stories that dramatically reveal what’s going on, while issues with strong organized opposition may pair better with stories that humanize or offer new investigative insights that prove the case. For example, faced with organized opposition from the oil and gas industry, Gasland director Josh Fox used a deeply investigative narrative that showed clear evidence of oil fracking’s negative impact on American communities that broke through to the mainstream and mobilized new activists, despite multimillion-dollar efforts by the natural gas industry to discredit the film.

Organizations and advocates should also think about which emotions will most likely engage new supporters. Many stories rely on negative emotions, such as sadness or guilt, to pull people’s heartstrings and inspire them to create change. Yet other emotions may be more effective at inspiring action; different emotions move people to do different things.

• Sadness makes us want to reach out and help, but if we feel like we can’t make a difference, we may disengage.
• Anger makes it hard for us to take the perspectives of others but is powerful for organizing a group against a common enemy.
• Fear makes us want to fight, flee, or freeze. If we don’t have a way to fight, we will flee or freeze.
• Awe opens us up to understanding perspectives different from our own.
• Pride inspires us to take action on behalf of others, because we anticipate feeling good about ourselves.
• Hope makes us feel like we can make a difference on social, environmental and personal issues, and can increase policy support and issue engagement.

As an example, Exposure Labs’ latest film, Chasing Coral, breaks the traditional “tragedy” script of climate storytelling by using a “quest” plot structure. Framed as an ocean adventure, the film incorporates feelings of awe and comedy alongside sadness, and the use of coral provides a novel entry point for understanding the issue. Together, these help provide a fresh narrative that can reach new audiences despite broad issue fatigue, and a highly organized opposition that has spent nearly $1 billion to misinform the public and delay action. Since the film’s 2017 release, it has mobilized voters, advanced clean energy policy, and inspired climate leadership in new communities, including among fisherman, business leaders, and conservative politicians.

Audience members pose after a screening of Beasts of the Southern Wild in Georgetown, South Carolina. (Image courtesy of Conservation Voters of South Carolina)

Casting New Characters

To expand social movements, organizations need to avoid using stock characters who reinforce established narratives, and instead elevate a new cast of characters that will engage a wider group of people.

Research suggests that transporting people into a story happens when people identify with its characters. Featuring relatable characters is therefore an important step in opening people up to new perspectives, and engaging new audiences on issues that they may be closed to or not engaged with at all. And while it doesn’t necessarily mean the characters have to look like the viewer, the audience should be able to see themselves in the characters through shared experiences, identities, or interests.

For example, like Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth and Leonardo Dicaprio in Before the Flood, the messengers of climate stories are often white men. With this in mind, the Exposure Labs campaign team has aimed to use the film Beasts of the Southern Wild to better engage communities of color around climate action. The story follows Hushpuppy, a 6-year-old girl of color, as she faces severe flooding in her community. We’ve screened it in coastal communities that have faced increased flooding to help elevate a shared experience disproportionately faced by communities of color. In so doing, it has served as an effective catalyst for climate change conversations and helped local advocacy groups build new support for clean energy solutions.

It’s also important to pay attention to who shares the story and leads related discussions, as it affects how people receive it. Trusted members within the communities organizations want to engage are well positioned to introduce new norms to the group.

On climate change, for example, researchers have found that people who have little trust in formal leaders (such as scientists and government officials) turn instead to informal “messengers” (such as friends, family, and religious leaders) for information. And a recent study found that a random sample of children in middle school who went through an educational program on climate change increased their parents’ concern about the issue, particularly conservative males.

Climate change communication scholars Matthew Nisbet and John Kotcher argue that opinion leaders within communities also play an important role:

Opinion leaders not only help draw the attention of others to a particular issue, product, or behavior but also, perhaps most importantly, signal how others should in turn respond or act. This influence may occur by giving advice and recommendations, by serving as a role model that others can imitate, by persuading or convincing others, or by way of contagion, a process where ideas or behaviors are spread with the initiator and the recipient unaware of any intentional attempt at influence.

Telling Stories Where People Are and Want to Be

To engage people “beyond the choir,” organizers must design experiences that people actually want to join. They can start by creatively identifying places where people who might not already support their cause naturally gather.

For example, to reach a new cross-section of climate supporters, the Chasing Coral campaign team organized a screening tour called Chasing Brews in partnership with microbreweries across Colorado. The idea was to use a shared love of beer to bring people together around climate change. By bringing the film’s message to places where communities already gathered, it reached a new mash-up of people who might not otherwise participate in a climate event. And assembling trusted messengers such as a local mayor and small business owners inspired audiences to make new personal commitments to climate action, such as doing a home energy audit or embracing a plant-based diet.

Designing a fun experience that’s more entertaining than informational also helps draw new audiences to social issues. Today, people choose to engage with entertainment like film and TV more than news or other information sources. Social change organizations can leverage entertainment by building campaigns around stories people want to see.

With this in mind, the Exposure Labs team organized a film series called Big Screen Bloc Party that aimed to bring young professionals together around climate action. With the goal of building a stronger environmental voting bloc, the series draws out millennial audiences by creating memorable events around beloved movies such as Wall-E and The Jungle Book, at places like art galleries and planetariums. For one event, the team organized around an episode of Captain Planet, followed by an improv comedy performance (see image at top). To close, former NFL player Ovie Mughelli spoke about his environmental commitment, inspiring the audience to pledge to vote.

Stories are one of the most powerful tools we have for engaging diverse communities on social and environmental issues. But in order to reach beyond the choir and bring new groups of people together around those issues, organizations need to be more intentional about the stories they share. By strategically sharing stories with different plot structures, emotions, and characters in places people want to be, organizations can bridge the gap between “us” and “them.”

Read more stories by Samantha Wright & Annie Neimand.