Crafting Better Narratives w/ Shanelle Matthews and Yewande Addie

The Joe Rogan Experience. Modern Family. The Daily Show. Needless to say, the audiences of these types of content are usually on different political wavelengths. A new project from The Radical Communicators Network (or RadComms) and Rising Majority says that in order to build a stronger force willing to fight back against authoritarianism, we need to understand how different kinds of stories and content affect how people perceive issues and digest meaning. Starting there, we can then be strategic about how we build narratives about organizing and activism tailored to specific audiences to better form a movement base; issue by issue. The report distinguishes four different kinds of groups of audiences, from the Fox News crowd, to the types of people eager to watch the latest episode of HBOs “The Pitt.” Analyzing these differences in audience taste and values can help organizers build narrative strategies that bridge divides with the power of storytelling. The full, easily digestible report is linked in the show notes and we strongly suggest those who are interested in any form of movement comms work check it out. Today's guests are two of the authors behind the report, called Rising Narratives for Radical Futures: Talking Across Difference for a Multi-Racial Democracy. Shanelle Matthews is the founder of Radical Communicators Network, which organizes movement communications workers across the US and internationally. And Yewande Addie is a communications scholar and narrative strategist with the BLIS Collective. Want more? Support our summer membership drive: bit.ly/2026memberdrive Submit your article proposals to Convergence Enrich your media diet: Movement Media Alliance Contact us: [email protected] Subscribe to Convergence Magazine’s YouTube to catch the video premiere of each episode: Mondays at 7:00 PM ET / 4:00 PM PT