The basics of narrative change, framing and testing for progressive social change.
Working on communications and creative action when you’re trying to make change at the grassroots can often leave you feeling stretched. We’re rapid-responding, reacting to the latest news story, campaign setback, or key moment. And we don’t get the support we need to work out how our efforts sit in the wider landscape of social change, or how our ideas will play out further down the line, affecting the way people think, feel and act in the longer term.
So, here’s an offering from us, to give you some space to learn and to get creative with new ways of approaching our shared fights for justice—we’re launching our brand new free mini-series of introductory online workshops.
Intro to Narrative Change
Thursday 6th August, 2.00pm – 3:30pm
—on Zoom with Hannah from PIRC.
What is narrative change, why does it matter, how does it work in practice? We’ll explore stories of narrative change in action, and share top tips from PIRC’s cross-issue research ‘The Narratives We Need’.
Intro to Framing practice
Tuesday 25th August, 12:30pm – 2:30pm
—on Zoom with Ralph Underhill from Framing Matters / PIRC Associate.
What is framing, how does it relate to story and narrative, and three key ways to improve your framing—with practical exercises, featuring animal traps from Ralph’s fab new toolkit ‘We All Make Mistakes’.
Intro to Communications Testing
Tuesday 22nd September, 12:30pm – 1:30pm
—on Zoom with Hannah from PIRC.
When you communicate you usually have a good idea of what you want to say and the change you want to make. But how do you know it’s going to work? Testing tells you whether your choice of framing leads to the outcomes you are aiming for. Get started with some simple, low-cost/ free activities to test your communications.
These online workshops are a starting point for folks who are newer to narrative change work, giving you space to learn about narrative strategy as a core part of social change work, and exploring tools to help you integrate it into your practice.
Some of the things we’ll explore:
- Understanding narrative change as a social movement process.
- Exploring the existing narratives, beliefs and values connected to our issues.
- Ingredients for effectively framing our issues, from climate to migration to LGBTQ+ rights.
- Learning how to set up a message test when you have no budget.
If you’re not sure what narrative change is, and want to know where to start, these workshops will give you practical ways to do that. We’d love you to join us— the online workshops are free to all, no application needed – but please make sure of your space using the link below.
