Can storytelling be a strategic lever for social and environmental change?

To feel deeply immersed in a narrative is a spellbinding experience. But storytelling isn’t just about entertainment. What significance might stories have in terms of collective benefit? Can we build a bridge between the stories that challenge us and social and environmental change? In telling the right stories to the right audience, we can mobilize people and engender a positive impact.

For this edition, Raccords investigates the relationship between narrative and social change. What characteristics make a story a potential lever? What effects do stories have on an audience? In what contexts should we resort to storytelling? What stories should we tell?

THE INTERVIEW /

How to build a transformative narrative?

Raccords #09 - Le storytelling peut-il être un levier stratégique pour le changement social et environnemental ?

In this exclusive interview for Raccords, Annie Neimand, Research Director of the Center for Public Interest Communications at the University of Florida, shares some key communications strategies that can truly move people to action.

Minimum Monument, Rome 2020

This installation is an ephemeral work that is part of the series Minimum Monument by the Brazilian artist Néle Azevedo. The human forms sculpted in the ice are faceless and anonymous, and stand as witnesses, observers of the Roman skyline. Members of the public are an integral part of the work and enter into a relationship with it: They are invited to choose a figure, to place it alongside the others, and then to watch it disappear as it melts over the course of some thirty minutes.

Can storytelling inspire us to engage in change?

For this episode of Raccords, exclusively in English this time, we spoke with Samantha Wright, Senior Vice President at Participant Media, a social-impact film-production company that has produced such films as Roma, RBG, and An Inconvenient Truth. Samantha says with conviction that “it all starts with a good story”.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST >

THE LIST /

Top picks of our guests, Annie and Samantha

Our guests, Annie Neimand and Samantha Wright, share a list of recommendations that will allow us to explore storytelling even more deeply as a lever for social and environmental change.

VIEW THE LIST >

The MIS would like to thank Néle Azevedo for his contribution to Raccords.

Artist: Néle Azevedo
Title of work: Minimum Monument, Rome, 2020
Materials: Sculpted ice