Report by Kim Durham

The right is very good at controlling the narrative – how can the Left tell better stories?

Session called by Kim Durham
Attending: Julie Osman, Gabrielle Getay, Clarissa Widya, Thea Stanton, Dan Milne, David Furlong, Jane Nash, Catriona Cayley, Amy Clare Tasker, Paul Whitlock, Zach Polanski, Owen Calvert-Lyons, Jenni Mackenzie-Jones, Andrew Hawkins, Ros Andrews, Conall Boronski, Angela Andrew (apologies for all missspellings!)
- The left often talks about Change without always clarifying the Goal of that change.
- The Right uses emotional appeal and repetition effectively. The Left uses persuasion through piling up of facts. Some question of whether the “Facts” of the Left are any more truthful than those of the Right (some dubious Facts were used and repeated by the Remain campaign).
- “People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it” – a better approach.
- Positive Messages work better than Negative ones. The Leave campaign stressed how much better we would be out. The Leave campaign was Project Fear.
- Related to this people want to be on the Winning Side.
- “Together Again” might be a good slogan for the current protests/campaign
- In terms of telling a better story – Personal Stories are more effective than the “Message” eg Greta Thurnberg
- A great need for Empathy, particularly in understanding Leavers’ motivations. There is too much “Othering”. We need to be able to tell the Leaver’s story and understand it.
- Could there be Open Space events across the political spectrum?