We know it is incredibly difficult to track, synthesize, and make sense of the political and narrative landscape when you are running on all cylinders.
While content banks and messaging guides support the field during this election season, one-size-fits-all tactical tools are not sufficient at this moment. Enter - Signals in the Noise: Election Edition.
Starting today, Team ReFrame will send out a weekly Signals in the Noise: Election Edition newsletter, which will deliver top-line narrative insights from ReFrame’s weather station directly to your inbox as well a link to the full blog post. This will serve as a resource for narrative strategists and frontline workers across issues and sectors as we contend for dignity, justice and power in a world on fire.
What do we mean by weather station? The ReFrame weather station is a suite of tools and technology our Narrative Research and Action team utilizes to aggregate millions of data points (social media, legacy media, scholarly articles and so much more) to break out of our organizational algorithms so we can better understand what is really moving in the narrative landscape. What are different audiences actually talking about? What platforms are they congregating in? Where are the narrative voids we need to watch out for? What are our narrative openings and risks?
Signals in the Noise: Election edition hits your inbox weekly on Tuesdays. Sign up here.
As we get closer to wrapping up the 2024 election cycle, both presidential candidates are attempting to sway voters on a multitude of issues. This week’s newsletter dives into stories, messages, content and conversations from across the narrative landscape between Thursday, October 10th and Tuesday, October 15th. Top-of-mind issues in the narrative ecosystem about the elections include the economy, foreign policy and how both candidates are shaping their communication strategies to appeal to voters.
Narratives at play in these conversations include:
- A Harris/Walz ticket can fulfill America’s promise of a multiracial democracy
- A Harris/Walz ticket will send the economy in a downward spiral
- A Trump/Vance ticket will send America backward
- A Trump/Vance ticket will energize the economy
- The cost of living is too high
- Law and order
- The government is squandering resources on migrants, not American citizens
- America must enact an arms embargo against Israel now
- The US is fighting for power on the global stage
THE LATEST
Economic Plans and Economic Anxieties
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are advancing their economic plans, trying to define themselves as the duo for the middle class as they make campaign stops in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Harris is vying for voters of color, particularly pursuing the Black male vote. In previous election cycles, Black men have been homogenized into political pawns, reduced to assertions that they are breaking for the GOP en masse. This is a false belief that the Harris campaign is circumventing with the Opportunity Agenda for Black Men. Content and conversations about Harris’ Opportunity Agenda are polarized, to say the least. Content by Black creators on platforms like X, Instagram and TikTok accuse the Democrats of talking down at them, with detailed explainers about their choices, some opting to make educational for us by us content for their audiences. Other popular stories include her remarks about weed legalization and studying the possibility of reparations.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are leveraging right wing economic populist narratives, relying on Trump’s presidential record, current inflation and the cost of living. These narratives are also being elevated by Republicans, MAGA influencers and right wing media outlets who are elevating messages about the cost of everyday goods and services like food, rent and electricity. Predictably, the Trump campaign is merging its messaging around inflation and the cost of living with xenophobic messages and narratives about a so-called “border invasion.” These attempts at painting immigrants as job killers will act as yet another racist wedge between communities based on real and perceived immigration status and identity. It feels like we’re back in the early-aughts watching a bad South Park skit.
Spikes on October 14th are attributed to the beginning of early and mail-in voting, poll numbers, and candidates' agendas.
QUICK HITS
All Tea, All Shade
Harris HQ is using Trump’s cognitive state as a piñata against him, utilizing hashtags like #DementiaDon on X and video-based platforms like TikTok to question his fortitude. Meanwhile, Trump and his supporters are pummeling Harris on her inability to speak to an audience sans teleprompter, touting their greater ability to speak at press conferences and rallies. In the era of coconut memes and fan cams, these types of tit-for-tat tactics are likely to continue.
The Vestiges of QAnon Linger
Trump is turning up on the whole “enemies from within” thing, which is reminiscent of conspiracy theories and disinformation about the Deep State from the 2020 elections. Similar to the events leading up to the insurrection on January 6, 2021, his campaign is soft-launching messages and narratives about election security and defense, upholding an accelerationist view of law and order. In response, the Harris/Walz campaign has gone on the defensive, calling him a fascist threat to democracy.
War Games
The Biden/Harris administration announced its pledge to send another weapons cache to Israel on the same day they gave a 30-day ultimatum to secure humanitarian aid or risk military aid. Early content and conversations include demands for an arms embargo now. As this story develops, we are witnessing a growth in the usage of and demand for an arms embargo in tandem with calls for a ceasefire, especially as Israel’s extermination campaign expands across the region. Middle-of-the-road centrists, legacy news media and politicians are some of the narrative actors that leverage the importance of humanitarian aid. Progressive demands for ceasefire and an arms embargo are leveraged by pro-Palestinian organizations, media influencers, leftists and some liberals as they continue a year-long trend of making their political demands known. However, these same narrative actors do contribute to the overall conversation about humanitarian aid, describing it as a catch-22 or a “PR stunt” by the Biden administration.
ON OUR RADAR
Red-baiting and Groomer Accusations Target Walz
Just like disinformation campaigns targeting “Pedo Joe” and “Beijing Biden,” we are in the throes of watching the same tactics deployed against the Vice President hopeful. Claims that Walz is an abuser and groomer are developing. Influencers spreading the disinfo include globalist conspiracy theorist Ian Caroll, self-described researcher MJTruthUltra, and Elon Musk fanboy Matt Wallace. Although there are some debunks, we can bet money that MAGA influencers and conspiracy theorists on X, TikTok and message boards like Rumble, Gab and Reddit will continue sharing it before it hits the broader right wing media ecosystem.
FROM THE ECOSYSTEM
On a lighter note and in closing, we would like to shout out the following movement organizations and their offerings to the field:
- The Global Narrative Hive is hosting a workshop with Rede Transfeminista de Cuidados Digitais (RTCD). The workshop combines narrative and trans-cestral memory with building spaces of care for the digital age. Read more about it and register here.
- Intersex Awareness Week is from October 21st to October 26th, and InterACT has created a new resource on reproductive justice and intersex people towards reproductive justice organizations and policymakers. Check it out!
- The Radical Communicators Network is hosting its next #RadSession, How to Measure Narrative Change, on Friday, October 25th. You can sign up to attend here.
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