On day one of Narrative Power Summit 2025, ReFrame Executive Director hermelinda cortés opened with a charge to the field — a grounding in grief, strategy, and the responsibility of narrative work in a time of rising authoritarianism.
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Nearly 700 movement leaders gathered for Narrative Power Summit 2025 — in New Orleans and online — to build narrative infrastructure, sharpen strategy, and hold space for joy, rage, and resistance. This is what we built together, and where we’re going next.
Nearly 700 movement leaders, organizers, strategists, artists, cultural workers and storytellers came together for Narrative Power Summit 2025, co-hosted by ReFrame and the Radical Communicators Network, in Tremé, New Orleans and online across the globe. Together, we wrestled with the questions we’ve all been carrying: Not just what if we win, but how do we prepare when we win? What if narrative isn’t just reactive, but revolutionary? What does it take to build narrative infrastructure that holds under pressure, especially in the face of rising authoritarianism?
From the big screen of the main ballroom, ReFrame board members and longtime movement leaders Malkia Devich-Cyril and Jen Soriano grounded us in the work ahead. As Malkia reminded us:
“Authoritarians win through the politics of isolation, and our job is to build belonging.” — Malkia Devich-Cyril
Jen followed with the charge:
“The right wins by driving wedges between us. Our task is to build the bridges that keep us connected — through story, through strategy, through struggle.” — Jen Soriano
Their reflections draw from a deep lineage of justice communications — one that recognizes narrative not as a tactic but as infrastructure for organizing, campaigning and cultural transformation.
We showed up with open hearts and sharpened minds. From the first drumbeat to the final mic drop, it was clear: this wasn’t just another conference. This was a pulse check for our movements.
We began with a cultural grounding from the Mardi Gras Indians of New Orleans, a living tradition of resistance, beauty and survival. Local historian Cierra Chenier reminded us that, "Black New Orleans will be free." Wendi Moore O’Neal and local frontline organizers including Sara Gozalo, Tamia Cenance, Renée Slajda and Amber Walker shared narrative interventions rooted in deep practice of community organizing and cultural resistance. Hermelinda Cortés closed the opening with a charge to the room:
"Narrative power must be principled, strategic and collective. The charge at hand is not just resisting power but preparing to win it. Narrative is a team sport. It’s time for us to coalesce, to be greater than the sum of our parts.” — hermelinda cortès, ReFrame
To read her full opening remarks, click here.
Over the next three days, we moved through dozens of sessions, from narrative design labs to strategy clinics on climate, abortion, AI and antifascism. Some spaces held stillness. Others sparked action. But three themes came up again and again:
“Each session felt like an intervention in the best way. Powerful, clear and rooted in movement.” — Samy Nemir Olivares, Narrative Power Summit 2025 Attendee, In Person
The virtual summit brought the same energy. Attendees built the vibe with playlists, chat love, screen takeovers and real-time organizing. Film screenings, keynotes and workshops came alive onscreen. Many called it the best virtual convening they had ever attended.
“It felt like a family reunion. I laughed, I cried, I built strategy. The virtual space made me feel just as seen and heard as if I were in the room.” — Lourdes Rivas, Narrative Power Summit 2025 Attendee, Virtual
Even folks tuning in from their kitchens or phones felt the NPS-heat. Our virtual fam didn’t just log on, they showed up, dropped wisdom and built community. If you think a chat box can’t be lit, you are mistaken.
Friday night, we turned up. ReFrame’s 10-Year Turn Up kicked off our yearlong anniversary celebration for ten years of building narrative power. We packed Sweet Lorraine’s Jazz Club in the Tremé with movement family and DJ Rakimbeau kept the dance floor moving. The Original Pinettes, New Orleans’ legendary all-women brass band, lit it up.
It wasn’t just a party. It was a declaration. Joy is strategy. Culture is infrastructure. The room smelled like sweat and sequins. We danced to our own beat, laughed too loud and remembered why we fight for narrative power. The joy was earned. The rhythm was resistance.
Our people are worth celebrating. Since 2015, ReFrame has trained, supported and collaborated with thousands of organizers, creatives and communications strategists. We’re proud of the work and we’re just getting started.
“The sessions were deeply transformative. Every element felt crafted with political care.” — Rukia Lumumba, Narrative Power Summit 2025 Attendee, In Person
Saturday closed with a rapid-fire block of Ignite Talks. Movement builders offered bold, urgent reflections on trans liberation, worker power, reproductive justice, housing, abolition and economic transformation. The format moved fast. Every speaker brought clarity and imagination.
“At some point I forgot I was attending from my laptop. The energy, the facilitation, the culture — everything made me feel like I was right there.” — Sarah Soto, Narrative Power Summit 2025 Attendee, Virtual
After the round of impressive ignite talks, RadComms’ Shanelle Matthews took the mic and brought us home with the kind of clarity that cuts through the noise. She reminded us that narrative isn’t just a tool we use when things fall apart. It’s how we shape what comes next.
“The future isn’t just something that’s happening to us. It’s something we are narrating into existence. The empire will try to write the ending — and why we are here is to make sure they do not get the last word.” — Shanelle Matthews, RadComms
You could feel the shift in the room. Heads nodding. People grabbing their notebooks. That wasn’t just a closing line. It was a charge. For us to pick up the pen, claim the story and build narrative power to win.
This summit launched the next chapter of our work, alongside Radical Communicators and other power builders. In June, we’ll kick off 100 Days of Narrative in Atlanta, a coordinated space for narrative strategy, networked infrastructure and campaign support aimed at what our movements need now to push back the authoritarian threats facing all of us.
100 days of Narrative is part of a larger push – a cross-movement effort to build coherence and drive strategic narrative action. Want in? Sign up here: bit.ly/100daysofnarrative
We closed the space knowing the terrain is shifting but so are we. We’ve got imagination and vision, compelling strategies, a decade of movement narrative power building, and we’ve got each other - a robust network of leaders positioned and ready to answer the charge of this time.
To the facilitators, co-dreamers, tech wizards, cultural workers, funders who get it, and every single person who helped hold this thing down — you have our unending gratitude.
To the people of the 64 parishes of Bulbancha, or what we call New Orleans: thank you for hosting us with deep hospitality and stewardship. We thank you.
Endless gratitude to our movement partners at the Radical Communicators Network for your radness, your throw-down spirit, and for co-holding this powerful space with us. Here's to continuing to build the bench, the infrastructure, and everything our movements need — today and until we all win. We left recharged and recommitted to this work, and we hope you will join us for our next sets of offerings, including the Narrative Nerve Center, ReFrame’s virtual Academy October 20th - 24th, Spanish-language narrative training, and more.
Nos Vemos
— Team ReFrame
Special thank you to Red Feather Films and Green Tangerine Photography
On day one of Narrative Power Summit 2025, ReFrame Executive Director hermelinda cortés opened with a charge to the field — a grounding in grief, strategy, and the responsibility of narrative work in a time of rising authoritarianism.
On May 8, 2025, as the halls of the Royal Sonesta buzzed with comrades reunited and new faces meeting for the first time, ReFrame Executive Director hermelinda cortés prepared to open one of the most vital gatherings our movement holds. The Narrative Power Summit was a calling to move ourselves into community and a collective reckoning with the terrain we must navigate together. What follows are hermelinda’s full opening remarks, grounding us in what is at stake and what it will take to move forward with courage and purpose.
To see how this charge shaped the rest of the Summit, read the full recap blog here.
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Good morning, Narrative Power Summit!
Whether you’ve been doing narrative work for one week or thirty years, we are so excited to have you here in New Orleans, a place of contending for power and of grief but also great narrative power, resistance and joy.
Thank you to the locals for having us in your hometown.
As you’ve heard all through the morning, we are in times that are asking the most of us and a lot of us are already giving most of what we’ve got.
On behalf of ReFrame and RadComms, we want to thank you all for trusting us with your time and your resources, given all the work that we are holding while caring for our spirits and our communities as we move to combat authoritarianism taking hold for the next 20-30 years.
The authoritarian playbook is in full force. This is not hyperbole. I say this explicitly because there is danger in not clearly understanding the terrain we are on.
We are not living in a moment where we are waiting for authoritarianism to arrive. We are amidst its grasp, and it is moving quickly, attempting to squeeze us for everything we are and have.
Scholars and our international comrades around the world tell us we have 12-18 months to interrupt an authoritarian coup and to prevent the full consolidation of authoritarianism for a generation. The playbook is in full force.
Comrade, Jiva reminded me yesterday that 70 percent of the globe is living under some sort of authoritarianism.
This is not to alarm or panic us, but to center and to ground ourselves. To link arms and to answer the call to the charge at hand. To do everything we can to fully stop the intimidation, violence, defunding, and silencing of millions of people - the ongoing aim to annihilate immigrants, Black people, people with disabilities and trans folks.
The charge at hand is not just resisting power but preparing to win it.
As narrative workers, we are a robust web that ties culture, organizing, policy, litigation, protest, direct action and more.
We make meaning.
And so, we must make meaning of this time for the masses, not just the toiling required and sounding the alarm, but the hope, rigor and care required to build and enact a compelling future. A future where we all have what we need, a future of joy, where our lives are celebrated.
It is part of our work to remind our people not to do the work of those who would prefer we be eliminated from the planet. As Daniel Hunter told us, do not obey in advance.
Here is what we must do: disrupt, delegitimize, defect and disseminate
We must do this with every sector of society, from teachers and nurses to postal workers and grocery clerks, with scriptwriters and musicians, with journalists and academics and the millions of workers who make this country run.
As you can see, I want to ask you to close your eyes or find a focal point. Plant your feet or find your center. Locate your heart - feel it. Drop your shoulders from your ears, as comrade Anna Castro always reminds us, and take a deep breath.
I want you to remember a moment, scan for it, that compelled you to join the call to be in motion for liberation and freedom.
For many of us, there is not just one moment but many - a series of unfortunate events, often traumatic ones, that made a voice inside of us say - something ain’t right.
I want you to remember what gave you permission to stand in your power, your agency and that you could do something about it. Maybe it was a poster, a film, a march, someone knocking on your door, or phone banking you. Maybe it was a mentor or a stranger.
Come back to the room and take another breath.
For me, narrative entry points helped me find my call to do something about the despair around me as a young, angry, country southern queer, child of immigrants, factory workers, farmers and trailer parks – it was a crime think poster, a radio station I DJed with incarcerated folks in rural VA, direct action to stop mountain top removal with poor white Appalachians, deportation defense for my loved ones, an anti-war march, it was Suzanne Pharr and Kai Lumumba Barrow and Paulina helm Hernandez. And it was the thousands of strangers I talked to across the South who fed me and welcomed me into their homes as a young organizer.
Narrative is a team sport. It’s time for us to coalesce. It is time for us to be greater than the sum of our parts. So here is your call to action.
Do not ignore your rage, fear and grief but channel it.
In the 1950s, during the Montgomery Bus Boycotts, leaders like MLK went into hiding after white supremacist and police threats. But the southern Black gay organizer Bayard Rustin organized them to channel their fear. They came out of hiding and moved right on down to the police station and demanded to be arrested. They made a spectacle of repression and violence to reclaim their power.
Over the coming weeks and months, RadComms and ReFrame will make another ask and invitation for you to get real with us about building narrative power to channel our rage, grief and fear, to leverage our hope and our joy.
As they say, we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
Look to your left and right, look around this room, find your comrades and build new ones. We are going to need each other. Remember what Wendi Moore O’Neal called upon us to remember, how far we’ve come and that we believe.
Let us together build a cacophony of joyful resistance, one rooted in narrative power and solidarity, of bridges and wedges, one calling for a future that is irresistible to join.
Let’s do this y’all! The right is rising but so are we!
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Applications close February 2nd—don’t miss your shot!
Fam, the 2025 Narrative Power Summit (NPS) is coming in hot, and we want you in the room. Join us and our co-host RadComms in New Orleans May 7-10, 2025— the city where culture, resistance, and storytelling collide—to build the narrative power our movements need to win.
If you’ve been searching for a space to sharpen your skills, collaborate with bold thinkers, and level up your narrative game, this is it! Whether you’re an organizer, a cultural worker, or a comms strategist, NPS is where you’ll find your people and the tools to amplify our collective power.
NPS isn’t your typical conference. It’s a three-day hands-on experience where you won’t just sit and listen—you’ll strategize, experiment, and build alongside a room full of values-aligned comrades. Here’s a taste of what’s in store:
NPS isn’t just a summit—it’s a space where our movements come together to dream, create, and build toward a better world.
We’re looking for narrative power-builders across social justice movements—organizers, communicators, cultural strategists, and anyone deeply rooted in the fight for justice. If you’ve been a part of ReFrame’s clinics, academies, or other programs, you already know the kind of transformative magic that happens when we gather.
NPS is the next level.
The deadline to apply is February 2 at 11:59 PM, and spots are filling fast. So, don’t sleep on this opportunity—get your application in today!
The power of multigenerational and regional narratives, intersectionality, and digital strategy will help us shape just futures.
On January 23, 2025, over 200 organizers, communicators and strategists joined ReFrame for our 2025 Narrative Predictions Townhall to discuss The Great Transition. We explored enduring narratives and emergent story trends and reflected on current social, political and cultural upheavals in play in the current narrative landscape. Our annual narrative predictions help you make sense of the changing social and political conditions likely to unfold in the new year while providing critical insights for crafting communications and organizing strategies. We highlighted three strategists who shared their experiences of making practical use of the predictions—seeding just narratives, uprooting harmful ones and scenario planning.
We focused on building narratives that connect generations, regions and identities and discussed tactics to adapt to the ever-shifting digital landscape. These themes came alive through real-world insights shared by our featured leaders including:
What Comes Next? We’re excited to offer opportunities to collectively strategize with these in-person offerings:
2024 was the year we leveled up, broke barriers and built power together. Let's talk about it!
2024 was the year we leveled up, broke barriers and built power together. Let's talk about it!
ReFrame kicked off 2024 with clarity and vision. Our 2024 Annual Narrative Predictions dropped in January and became the anchor for movements navigating a complex year. The report hit some major themes — economic narratives, labor struggles, the gerontocracy and cultural reckonings — and found its way into the hands of 14,000+ organizers and strategists, helping them sharpen the tools in their toolboxes. Over 300 organizers and communicators gathered to dissect the report at the 2024 Predictions Town Hall to ask questions, share musings, and strategize for the year ahead.
Now, we’re inviting you to join us again — The Great Transition: ReFrame’s 2025 Narrative Predictions report is live with insights for the coming year! These predictions are not just analyses but call to action for anyone ready to build new narratives and build the infrastructure needed to score some wins.
Mark your calendars for the 2025 Predictions Town Hall on January 23, 2025, to connect, strategize, and prepare for the year ahead. Register here.
In 2024, we wrapped up our inaugural Narrative Nexus: Power and Philanthropy program! Co-sponsored by The California Endowment and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, with support from the Melville Charitable Trust, the series connected funders to the critical role of narrative in shaping movements and driving change. The six-part series, designed for 34 leaders across philanthropy, offered a deep dive into narrative power and infrastructure building, blending five virtual sessions with a final in-person convening. Facilitated by hermelinda cortés, Jung Hee Choi, and Joseph Phelan, Narrative Nexus became a space for big questions, bold ideas, and practical strategies—offering participants the tools to reimagine how philanthropy can support transformative narrative work. Keep an eye out in 2025 for recommendations for what philanthropy can do to support narrative power building sustainably!
This series is proof of what’s possible when we invest in building narrative power at every level of our movements. With your support, we can expand opportunities like Narrative Nexus, equipping even more leaders to amplify stories of justice and liberation. Donate today to help sustain and grow programs that connect philanthropy with the work of shaping narratives for lasting change.
Narrative power must reflect the diversity of our movements. This October, we launched our first-ever Spanish-First Training pilots, a project born from years of dreaming and scheming. Over the course of two trainings and feedback sessions, 17 organizations joined us to sharpen their narrative strategies and build tools in a space designed specifically for Spanish-speaking organizers and communicators.
The pilot was also a space of affirmation. Participants shared that for the first time, they felt fully seen in a space dedicated to shoring up core narrative strategy and tactics to apply to their work. Real-time feedback is already helping us refine the curriculum and in 2025, we’re excited to expand this work even further.
ReFrame’s Spanish First pilot program marked a pivotal moment for narrative infrastructure building, and we’re just getting started. With your support, we can keep building on this foundation and ensure these tools reach even more movement organizers.
When it comes to building power, California has always been a bellwether, and the MVP Echos Academy is proof of that. In May, we launched this seven-month program in partnership with the Million Voters Project, bringing together 38 narrative practitioners in 19 organizations to align around shared goals: building multiracial democracy, advancing care and inclusion, and holding corporations accountable.
The work started in Costa Mesa, where strategy sessions unfolded under the California sun. Late-night brainstorms, fireside conversations, and real-world planning sessions set the stage for weekly virtual programming from June through November. These sessions became a testing ground for bold narrative experiments across the state. Echos launched 13 public education narrative projects by year's end to tackle urgent issues like climate justice, economic inequality, and immigrant rights. Supported by $334K in microgrants, these projects seeded narrative shifts in communities across the state.
When we invest in people and their moonshot ideas, we can build a narrative infrastructure that lasts. Your contributions make initiatives like this possible, and with your help, we’re ready to expand these efforts in the coming years.
We did our big one! In September, ReFrame officially became an independent organization with its own bylaws, infrastructure, and vision. But let’s be real: this was more than just an operational shift; it was about fully stepping into our power as a movement organization and network utility.
To mark the occasion, we brought the team together for a staff retreat where we reflected on the journey and dreamed about what’s next. Using an almost comical number of sticky notes and notes in an endless Google doc, we mapped out the experiments and milestones that led us here and charted the ones we’re making big bets on in the future.
With your support, we’re entering this next decade stronger, bolder, and more committed than ever to building the narrative power movements need to win.
Early in 2024, we launched the Narrative Salon Series, a laboratory for experimentation where informal yet rigorous strategy spaces took shape. These salons became a launchpad for our 2024 and 2025 Narrative Integration and Action work, offering movement leaders a space to workshop bold ideas and collaborate on narrative strategies that drive impact in the field.
Building from insights and practices developed in these salons, ReFrame’s Narrative Command Center served as a nerve center during the election season. Leveraging our weather station, the narrative research and action team published weekly blogs packed with insights and recommendations to help organizers and communicators cut through the noise.
The Command Center’s Signals in the Noise: Election Edition Strategy Clinics translated this research into action. With the expertise of narrative strategists nationwide, these clinics helped organizers break down the tactics behind anti-democratic narratives and mis- and disinformation, equipping them with stories rooted in hope, dignity, and collective power.”
The elections are over, but the work doesn’t stop here. These salons and strategy clinics have set the stage for the next phase of our Narrative Integration and Action efforts, ensuring that our movements stay ahead in a constantly shifting narrative landscape.
Help us keep this critical work going. Donate today to sustain the Narrative Command Center and support the next wave of narrative innovation. Together, we’re not just responding to the moment—we’re shaping it.
Our Narrative Research and Action team had a full plate this year, tackling some of the most polarized narrative terrains of our time. With support from the Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, we explored the story trends, narratives, and values shaping the United Auto Workers union drives in Tennessee and Alabama. Meanwhile, in partnership with the Energy Foundation, we dove into the evolving and contested narratives surrounding electric vehicles as a vector for mis-and disinformation. Set to publish in early 2025; these reports will offer organizers and movement leaders the insights needed to navigate and shift the narrative landscapes around labor, unions, transportation alternatives and climate justice.
With your support, we can continue producing cutting-edge research that informs strategy and drives impact. Donate today to help sustain this critical work and ensure these reports reach the most needed movements.
As we look ahead to 2025 — and our 10th anniversary — we’re celebrating the incredible work we’ve done together and dreaming bigger than ever.
With your support, we can:
Your contributions fuel this work. Every dollar supports our vision of a world where narrative power builds freedom, justice, and liberation for all.
Thank you for being part of this journey.
ReFrame's 2025 Predictions are here! Before we enter the new year let's look at the dominant and emergent narratives from 2022 to now.
To look forward, we must look back. For this reason, we have examined our past predictions to help us ground ourselves before we enter the portal of 2025 and strategize for the challenging years ahead. We aim to highlight narrative predictions and offer concrete recommendations to shape compelling narrative and organizing strategies. While our predictions have been remarkably accurate, we anticipate the same narratives will inform new story trends as the narrative landscape responds to larger cultural, social and political currents. Nonetheless, we hope you find inspiration to strategize, organize and communicate more powerfully, with renewal and sustainability for the long haul. And as you read, we invite you to remember and reflect on grief beyond the individual experience into a collective endeavor.
ReFrame’s Narrative Predictions reports Through the Looking Glass (2022), Catalyzing Ripples (2023) and Vertigo Variations (2024) have helped us study dominant narratives and values that have endured since 2020. We have a strong track record of accurately forecasting narrative trends. In Through the Looking Glass, we anticipated the erosion of public trust in institutions, which became increasingly evident in pandemic-related misinformation and health inequities. Catalyzing Ripples clocked identity as a key battleground, a prediction realized in 2024 through the cultural and legislative fights over transgender rights and racial justice. Vertigo Variations highlighted the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) narratives, accurately predicting the heated debates over authorship and authenticity sparked by AI-generated art and storytelling. Here is our top-line summary of the narrative and story trends from our last three Narrative Prediction reports, which helped inform our 2025 predictions.
From majority to minority rule to debates about what America is and whom the country was built for, democracy and governance have been in the balance for years, undergoing pushes and pulls in different directions. The political fatigue felt during the 2022 midterm election season — along with failures of neoliberal governance, scandals and felony investigations and the testing (and breaking) of democratic norms — brought us closer to the precipice of authoritarianism and the normalization of fascism. Debates about power, leadership and legitimacy related to identity, perceived social position, religious affiliation and demographic change have influenced our current conditions, coming to a head during the 2024 election cycle.
In many ways, U.S. President-Elect Donald J. Trump spoke directly to the existential crises of many. He cast himself as a messianic hero who would restore America to wholeness. He filled up a spiritual vacuum for his followers and persuadable voters, appealing to their values, beliefs and worldviews. Trump promised to assuage their grief and grievances socially and economically. By going on the attack against the villains in his story — Biden, the Democrats, the “deep state,” and China as well as immigrants from Global Majority nations — Trump vindicated his base and, in the process, himself. Pro-Trump stories and messages were tested and refined throughout the entirety of the Biden administration, winning him a ticket back to the White House where he — and, by extension, his supporters — can govern in alignment with their values and worldview.
Throughout our 2022–2024 predictions research, dominant narratives in conversations about democracy and governance included:
While not as loud, these were narratives contesting for dominance:
Growing economic disparities have shaped the narrative landscape on the economy and labor, presenting plenty of opportunities to advocate for alternate economic systems beyond extractive capitalism. As elevated in our predictions from 2022, 2023 and 2024, economic trends highlighted a gradual recovery from the pandemic, supply chain woes, inflation, stock market growth and a massive wealth transfer benefiting economic elites. The story of American progress was about low unemployment rates and a healthy economy. Still, it stood in stark contradiction to the experiences that poor and working-class families were having. Legacy media propagated stories gaslighting Americans over their economic challenges, and elected officials echoed these messages, individualizing the problem instead of pointing the finger at disinvestment and corporate greed. Stories about the economy also elevated the ultra-wealthy and corporations as heroes for their record profits and performance in the stock market. In contrast, pro-worker narratives moved stories highlighting labor exploitation from legacy media’s “hero” figures. These stories contributed to the growing positive outlook on unions as an institution that promotes economic equality and helps build worker power. Since 2020, unionizing efforts have boomed, providing working-class people the tools and infrastructure to demand corporations give their fair share.
Throughout our 2022–2024 predictions research, dominant narratives in conversations about the economy and labor included:
While not as loud, these were narratives contesting for dominance:
The reactionary legislative agenda we have faced is the result of a repressive political strategy targeting queer and trans people and bodily autonomy. The loss of national abortion protection and attacks on the transgender, gender nonconforming and nonbinary communities have caused significant grief over bodily autonomy. However, voters transformed it into victories across downballot races and referendums during the 2022 midterms and 2024 elections. For the past nine years, there have been countless images of gender expansive people who have taken to the streets, For You Pages, podcasts and traditional media outlets to air their grievances and build cultural power. Popular content features their pain points, highlighting the denial of essential services like gender-affirming care and critical gynecological procedures for themselves and their loved ones. Content and conversations also highlighted the intersections of race, class, disability, gender and sexual orientation.
Throughout our 2022–2024 predictions research, dominant narratives in conversations about gender and the body included:
While not as loud, these narratives were vying for dominance in the narrative landscape:
We have yet to fully understand the level of collective grief we hold in the wake of devastating wildfires, hurricanes and subsequent mudslides that have resulted in loss of life and property. Still, key moments give us a good idea of where we can make narrative interventions. Conversations that linked environmentalism to equity drove popular content about the climate, especially when paired with demands for meaningful change over sustainability. With the upward trend of catastrophic superstorms came an unavoidable growing awareness of climate issues and their impacts on infrastructure, promoting narratives of safety and preparedness. Despite the state’s constant threats, activists, climate justice organizations and land defenders utilized viral moments (ex., hurricane Helene TikToks from an influencer’s POV) to combine their demands for accountability and reparations from corporations, fossil fuel beneficiaries and government institutions.
Throughout our 2022–2024 predictions research, dominant narratives in conversations about the climate included:
While not as loud, these were narratives contesting for dominance:
We understand the narrative landscape as an uneven playing field. As we prepare to release our 2025 Narrative Predictions and prepare for a second Trump administration, it remains clear we will need fortified organizers, communicators, influencers and practitioners for the long haul, and that requires our sustained vision, collective power and unyielding determination. We must continue to fortify our numbers and grow movement communications and narrative infrastructure for the long haul. The stories, messages and narratives we have elevated over the years will endure into 2025 and beyond. Team ReFrame will be there every step of the way, rigorously assessing the data, applying visionary thinking in our interventions and continuing to build the narrative North Stars that we need to win.
✨🪞 CLICK HERE TO READ THE GREAT TRANSITION: REFRAME'S 2025 NARRATIVE PREDICTIONS 🪞✨
