Our Approach To Storytelling For Social Change

• Transmedia

  Transmedia storytelling is the practice of designing, sharing, and participating in a cohesive story experience across multiple traditional and digital delivery platforms— for entertainment, advertising and marketing, or social change.

  Transmedia storytelling is different to multimedia storytelling— it isn’t simply telling the same story across different media. Rather, it is the combination of a number of different stories told through their own medium, in a way that allows that medium to “do what it does best.” Each individual story provides value to its audience when it is consumed on its own, but it also contributes something new and unique to the overarching narrative.

  Think of Harry Potter— there are books, movies, video games, the Pottermore website, spin off books, etc etc. that are all set in the same storyworld— the wizarding world. You could watch one Harry Potter movie, and still gain enough from that, because it is a complete story with enough value on it’s own. But depending on how deep you wanted to dive into the overarching narrative, you could read all of the books, play the games, or take the quiz to see which house you belong to. Together, these each add their own unique value to the overarching story experience. This is transmedia storytelling.

• Solutions-Focused

  We are often left with a media landscape dominated by dismal perspectives on the world. Too much of our media focuses on “What went wrong yesterday and who can we blame?” Too rarely does it focus on “What might go right tomorrow and who is showing the way?” So we’re bringing you a solution.

  For many people, being bombarded with stories about all of the problems within society, rather than the solutions, leads to a disinterest and disengagement in global issues. This harms the strength and resilience of our communities, both locally and globally. Using the power of media and technology to advance positive social change certainly isn’t a new concept, but solutions media is re-thinking how media can be a tool to drive more effective humanitarian action and social change.

  It’s not about positive or ‘good news’ stories – people carrying out inspirational acts of generosity or achievement. You know… the types of positive stories that are shared on social media that make people feel-good. It certainly doesn’t ignore the problems that exist, or the barriers to achieving them.

  Solutions media uses communication tools to respond to social problems, and can take many diverse forms like journalism, digital tools, cultural products or public campaigns. People need to learn about examples of positive change. Identifying potential solutions to our society’s challenges is key to our public dialogue.

  By choosing to create, consume, or share solutions-focused stories and ideas, you can help turn the media into a valuable information tool, a forum for discussion, and a peace and consensus builder.

• Storytelling

  Storytelling has been one of our most fundamental methods of communication since the first cave paintings were discovered over tens of thousands of years ago, and it’s one of the most effective communication tools we have for driving social change.

  Facts and figures are great way to let people know about pressing global issues, and to help quantify the scope or depth of a humanitarian problem. But when you are trying to motivate people to care about an issue, take a specific action, or support a cause, there is actually a lot of solid evidence that telling a single story will have a far greater impact than any statistic. Everyone would rather hear a story than be sold to, and that’s because evolution has wired our brains to be more receptive to storytelling.

• Grassroots

  We recognise the truly interrelated nature of many issues within our increasingly globalised world. They’re all part of the same broken system, and the same oppressive structures, attitudes and ideas have allowed these issues to persist. Instead of tackling these issues individually we need to address them all with a more holistic approach. By including stories from people working on a diverse range of issues, we want to make sure people who work in specific areas can remain informed about other challenges in the social change ecosystem, and potentially apply the insights and strategies they learn from others in their own work.

  There are always people who are on the frontline of injustice, who have been fighting for justice long others joined the fight, and these are the people who need to have their voices heard the most. We want people from affected communities with lived experience to come forward and use this platform to amplify their voice, and also hold the rest of us accountable for our actions, so we can ensure we are working to bring about change in a way that is just and fair. We also want to continue to hold space for those who the mainstream may try to silence.

  We don’t see our type of participatory grassroots journalism as an alternative to other types of news reporting or investigative journalism, but one that complements these and aids in the process of building citizenship and raising social awareness to strengthen the media landscape.