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This year Team ReFrame hosted Narrative Salons and strategy spaces. Read on to learn why we did it and how it went.
ReFrame aims to develop the next generation of narrative strategists by connecting and supporting our network of organizers and communicators. We regularly receive requests for collaborative spaces to reflect and strategize, and we continually create diverse opportunities for engagement within our network.
This spring, ReFrame held four public Narrative Salons to test the impact of informal yet rigorous strategy conversations on key narratives. Designed to be accessible and recurring, these salons aimed to engage a wide range of practitioners across various issues and geographies..
Due to the highly fragmented legacy media and social media environment, it is difficult for practitioners to easily understand what is actually moving different audiences across the narrative landscape. Our individual and organizational algorithms tell us an incomplete story, and paint an inconsistent, selective and distorted view of conversations and perspectives. Given this, we spent three of the Salons focused on collectively developing a better understanding of the narrative landscape related to climate, democracy and immigration. We also monitored and discussed conversations about demands for a ceasefire and the Palestine solidarity encampments across college campuses this spring.
ReFrame’s narrative research, also known as the Weather Station, utilizes tools that scrape and aggregate data across all media types and social platforms over time so that organizers and communicators can anticipate openings, risks and opportunities to contend for narrative power more successfully. Up until recently, Weather Station technology and ‘social listening’ have primarily been leveraged by PR and marketing firms, corporate interests and different factions of the right wing. ReFrame is able to utilize this technology for the benefit of our movements by tracking stories, perspectives and narratives across ideology.
Our three focus areas drew interest from all corners of our network and the world - attorneys fighting against transphobia, housing justice organizers, youth activists fighting criminalization, culture workers and land-based spiritualists across the Americas, Europe and Africa, to name a few. The diversity of attendees across issue areas, geography, audience and more spoke to the potential of a shared strategy that contends for narrative dominance across issues, constituencies and fronts.
We also (re)learned important lessons about the limitations of drop-in, virtual, narrative spaces. Proactive long-term narrative strategy cannot be developed in a 60-minute virtual drop-in space. So, while we received positive feedback, we also grappled with the limits of a public, open and unvetted space. Discerning and prioritizing the various critical needs of our movement with our limited resources as an organization continues to be difficult and of the utmost importance.
Our approach for the 2024 election season was informed by our pilot 2020 Florida Command Center as well as our lessons and best practices from the Narrative Salons. ReFrame’s 2024 Signals In the Noise Election Edition blog was paired with a live Strategy Clinic. Together, they delivered real-time narrative insights, supported strategic planning and created collaborative spaces to traverse the dynamic landscape across issues and audiences and support narrative change strategies of movement leaders and institutions. While content banks and messaging guides are branded as a method to support the field during this election season, one-size-fits-all tactical tools are insufficient. Rather than pushing top-down recommendations, our innovative offering gives strategists and organizers a bird’s eye view of things unfolding in the narrative landscape, focusing on dominant and contending narratives. Our weekly insights incorporate narrative research and accompaniment to surface strategic insights in a space where leaders from across regions and issues can workshop with top narrative analysts and strategists to respond quickly to emerging opportunities and threats.
Leading up to and for six weeks following the election, ReFrame curated an in-network space for practitioners to gather and reflect on the most salient narrative fronts of the season. Demos of our Weather Station, accompanied by weekly narrative synthesis in blog form, delivered a line-up of what to look out for each week. Data and accompanying analysis were paired with a robust conversation featuring narrative and movement thought leaders during our live clinic. By preparing topline insights, paired with open time for practitioners to ask questions and check hunches, we were able to leverage the Weather Station to provide insights that mattered most to attendees. Themes discussed included: the cost of living, blame game discourse, the fallacy of democracy as a winning frame, mis-and disinformation, transphobia, immigration, split ticket and up-ballot voting, and so much more.
Our clinics saw 300 attendees across all fifty states. Like the Salons, attendees work across issue areas, geography and audience. Additionally, our clinics remained responsive to the swiftly changing landscape. We polled attendees to learn more about their shifting environment and needs and subsequently delivered research on Black men and Latine voters as a wedge demographic, dominant messages and narratives about the role of government post-election, third-party voters and more.
As we prepare for Trump 2.0, spaces like these with a more concentrated strategic narrative focus (i.e., folks running specific campaigns or interventions) and open forums for cross-movement communicators and organizers to strategize together are key. We must defend our precious existing narrative infrastructure and expand and proliferate it to move our messages into every nook, cranny and corner of this country and beyond. We know that the election results in 2024 were not a bellwether that the country has moved right, but rather that the left, progressives and the democratic party have ceded far too much territory to right wing forces. Building a legible and credible vision, elevating solutions (from the ground up) to some of our most pressing crises, and creating more avenues to disseminate our narratives and contend for narrative dominance will be paramount. We know our people are worth fighting for.
In 2024, ReFrame partnered with the Million Voters Project (MVP) and Power California (PowerCA) on a six-month, cutting-edge, field-defining narrative power program to accelerate narrative change from the ground up. MVP is a statewide formation of local, regional and statewide power building organizations in California, leveraging the power of organizing, integrated voter engagement (IVE) and narrative to advance their long term agenda. This program, titled Echos Academy, was rooted in MVP’s long-term agenda, narrative stepping stones and framework of narrative infrastructure, as well as ReFrame’s approach to building ecosystems of narrative power that center organizing, led by impacted communities, to expand the public notion of what is possible. While the term narrative has gained prevalence in social movement and power-building spaces over the years, ReFrame programming supported deepening understanding and practical application of narrative strategies along and inside of broader power-building strategies.
“Prior to this program, I feel like internally, when we spoke about narrative work, it seemed very abstract.But through the experiment and putting that into practice and creating tangible things. It created an example of what narrative work could and should be in our organization and with others. So I think throughout this program, it's really showed us how we can do this work in a less abstract way.” - Jay Chotirmal, CAUSE
ReFrame’s objective was to design all facets of the Academy and to train a cohort of 50 principals and practitioners from 20 MVP organizations through both 101 and 201 level modules. We kicked the program off with an in-person bootcamp in Costa Mesa, CA and then took it virtual, hosting weekly trainings on narrative strategy fundamentals such as audience segmentation, combatting mis-and disinformation and narrative landscaping. The real heart of Echos Academy lay in the narrative experiments, in which the cohort designed and led individual and collaborative projects aimed at advancing MVP’s narrative stepping stones and 2024 policy agenda utilizing the strategic and tactical skills learned in the Academy.
We tapped various parts of the ReFrame infrastructure to support this program. Long-time ReFrame comrades Janna Zinzi, Nina Smith, Chelsea Fuller and Jamila Aisha Brown stepped into coaching roles for the cohort and provided tremendous support to participants. And, our research team brought in our weather station and assembled IRL case studies to demonstrate narrative change in the immediate and over time. The Academy closed in November with overwhelming positive feedback, demonstrating the power and importance of investment in narrative infrastructure, particularly for grassroots, base building organizations.
“Reflecting back to early 2023, and then all of 2023, there was a deep desire to build narrative power without necessarily knowing how. There wasn't capacity to do it alone, especially when our teams are already small. And so, having this space where we could build relationships, support each other, lean on each other, share narrative best practices, divide the work, and build on each other's resources, was just so helpful “ - Rita Gabriela Marquez, California Calls
“We were doing it already, but didn't know it, and we needed the language and framing” - Akil Bell, Black Women for Wellness
What does the success of Echos tell us about the future of narrative power? The future of narrative power rests with more programs like Echos, and more investment in formations like MVP. Programs like the Echos Academy work to aggregate and amplify the numbers, demands, stories, and narratives of coalitions and grassroots groups. Their partnership with ReFrame ensured that narrative and communications practitioners across the state of California not only had a shared language and framework around what narrative is or isn’t, but were able to put their lessons learned into practical application. As a result of Echos, 20 MVP partner organizations are now in deeper coordination with each other, advancing unified stories and shared narratives as part of regional and statewide power-building strategies. In these times, where progressive ideas, issues and narratives are being shellacked, wielding our narrative power is a clear path forward.
Blame game hot takes, economic fears, and narratives about “shadow governments”—the election may be over, but the discourse is just getting started.
We’re back this week with another Signals in the Noise: Election Edition! Team ReFrame continues to monitor the post-election contours of the narrative ecosystem, where coverage continues to be informed by the blame game’s hot takes and takedowns. This edition focuses on content from November 10th to the 17th, though we go back in time to check our hunches and biases.
Here’s the TL;DR
From November 1st to the 17th, conversations about democracy were much lower than conversations about the elections (1.2 million mentions versus 20.4 million mentions). Compared to the same date range in 2022, mentions of democracy are down 81%, a drastic drop in volume. Compared to pop culture trends like “brat summer” (753k mentions) or “Project 2025” (18.3 million mentions), this drop in volume suggests that frames around protecting and saving democracy did not stick or saturate as much as they had in previous election cycles.
While the spike for democracy on November 6th at 208k mentions focused on the Democrats’ betrayal of the working class and their leaders’ waning influence, stories from November 11th to the 17th focus on the ways members of the Democratic party are gearing up to resist Trump’s policies and the threat they pose to “the rule of law.” Potential standoffs set the stage for weeks of unease, especially as the right-wing media ecosystem and MAGA loyalists call this tactic the formation of a shadow government or an insurrection, which is… ironic. These claims continue election stories about election integrity as votes are still being counted and verified in battleground states like Pennsylvania and Arizona. Expect law and order and safety and security narratives to be weaponized to crush dissent, regardless of who is at the front lines of the picket or protest. We can also expect these same narratives to be weaponized against organizations in the attempts to criminalize solidarity with Palestine, fast-tracking legislation to revoke non-profits and NGOs of their 501c3 status.
We track content and conversations about Trump’s picks like it’s the NFL draft. Here are some messages and narratives about the role of government in the post-election discourse:
This week, discussions about the economy and governance are high in volume in relation to The Onion hilariously buying InfoWars and concerns about the economy's future under austerity measures, cronyism, crypto and billionaire pump-and-dump schemes. In spikes about the economy and the cost of living, trending stories and conversations focus on the cost of food and inflation under the Trump administration, highlighting that his economic policies will be a net negative for poor and working class people. While some content and conversations focus on the current administration’s choice of wartime spending over the American people, we note the beginning of attacks on social safety nets like SNAP. Right now these conversations are mostly happening on X and are being leveraged by conservatives and economists. We believe there is a risk that social/government programs will come under fire through racialized disinformation (think wokeness or DEI), values of respectability, and narratives about capitalism, the deserving versus the undeserving, protecting children, and the weaponization of public health and safety. These same values and narratives are playing out in trends and pop culture as popularized in retorts like “just put the fries in the bag, bro,” or “I don’t know what this means, I’m employed,” both of which, at their core, are classist. All of this may help manufacture consent to a range of legislative measures, including stricter guidelines on food stamps and gutting the budget for temporary assistance programs like TANF.
Discussions about swearing off men, popularized in South Korea as the 4B movement, skyrocketed post-election day in response to the potential federal crackdown on women’s rights and Nick Fuentes’ misogynistic “your body, my choice” tirade. 4B is shorthand for the word “no” in Korean and is a protest against violence against women where they opt to revoke their labor from cisgender men, including sex, dating, marriage and childbearing. Young women lead the content and share of voice on Instagram and TikTok. Their content about the “sex strike” features right-wing influencers’ satirical content using narratives rooted in traditional femininity and desirability politics. However, conversations led by South Korean women and leftists in the U.S. are discussing 4B in the U.S. from a different angle, educating their followers on the fact that the movement has a transphobia problem. Within these conversations, there is an outsized focus on bodily autonomy, intimate partner violence (IPV), and the need for community between women and femmes, suggesting there is an opportunity to organize loudspeakers in long-term shared strategy around reproductive rights and freedoms and activate IRL spaces to provide opportunities for cisgender and trans women to organize in and solidarity. As we’ve already clocked, there is a risk that networks of trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs) and sex worker exclusionary radical feminists (SWERFs) will use this as an opportunity to masquerade their gender essentialist anti-trans ideology under the umbrella of 4B content to recruit liberal women (it’s already happening).
We’re rocking with some nuanced post-election hot takes about voting blocs. For Prism, Rann Miller discusses how Black men were scapegoated through the election, while Briana Ureña-Ravelo asks (and answers) questions about the Latine vote. Meanwhile, Julian Rose writes about what “the Left” gets wrong about the South for Scalawag Magazine. Before you dive in, grab a pen, paper, cup of tea and get comfy.
In the aftermath of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, mutual aid groups have not just stepped up to help their neighbors but have also found themselves on the frontlines of disinformation inoculation efforts. Read about the ways these groups promote narratives that demand good governance and structural change to address extreme weather events and shore up the infrastructure needed to prevent disaster.
November 18th honors the Battle of Vertières, a vital fight in Haiti’s liberation struggle. We welcome you to listen to Ayiti Pou Ayiti’s rendering of a battle song of the Haitian Revolution (it’s a protest anthem, too!), reminding us just how sacred archiving stories, photos, songs and chants are to keeping our radical traditions alive.
The narratives swirling around us right now are potent, messy, and constantly shifting—and that’s exactly why we need to make sense of them, together.
Signals in the Noise: Election Edition analyzed the narratives leading up to the 2024 election, focusing on economic issues, immigration, voting rights, race and gender justice. ReFrame’s analysis showed how narrative transcends ideology, taking on different meanings across audiences to shape online discourse. These narratives and the stories and messages that funnel them influenced voter behavior and perceptions of the role of government and governance, policies, candidates and their campaign promises. The mood and tone in election conversations were agitational, authoritative, urgent, concerned, informative, hopeful and empowering. Core values included equity, accountability, compassion, justice, empowerment, autonomy, integrity, community, safety and security.
The media ecosystem moves at a mile a minute, creating a complex narrative terrain where millions of stories and messages intersect and overlap. Some narrative battles challenge people’s core (and sometimes contradictory) beliefs and values; narrative battles allow us to combat harmful stories and messages and determine where and how to pick narrative fights on our terms.
Corporate interests and the needs of the working class clashed in narrative battles over which candidate was better for the economy. These stories and messages highlighted contrasting approaches to economic issues, like inflation or housing, and reflected differences in beliefs and values about class and equity.
Throughout the election season, narratives questioning election integrity and security circulated at the same volume as positive content about GOTV. The right reversed its earlier disapproval of early and mail-in voting and instead pushed messaging urging unity for its preferred candidate.
Demands for a ceasefire and an arms embargo on Israel were permanent fixtures in stories and conversations about the election, from protest voting to post-election blame game discourse.
Mis-and disinformation fueled distrust in electoral processes and led to fears around election day violence and voter intimidation.
Xenophobic depictions of immigrants as threats clashed with scarcity narratives and tensions about resource allocation. These stories, messages and conversations scapegoated immigrants throughout the election cycle.
There was a recognition of Black voting power from both political parties and legacy media, but it bordered on reliance on outdated stereotypes, tokenization and exploitation.
“States rights,” bioessentialism, disinformation and harmful discourse challenged reproductive rights and trans rights across election conversations.
Scarcity narratives demonizing queer and trans people created a wedge between liberal women and the trans community on bodily autonomy.
We understand the narrative landscape as an uneven playing field. In these narrative battles, harmful narratives could deepen societal divides, perpetuate injustice and erode trust in democratic processes. As we prepare for a second Trump administration, it is clear movement strategists, organizers and allied formations must:
Pool our resources, minimize our tactical squabbling and build our narrative infrastructure.
Invest the time and capacity together, especially around the economy, democracy and the role of government, to answer some of the vital narrative questions of our time. What narratives are we working to seed, especially around the economy, democracy, the role of government and safety?
Expand our reach far beyond our bases and inner circles.
Tell better stories: name the enemy, offer compelling alternatives and use plain language to meet folks where they are.
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 fortify our numbers and grow movement communications and narrative infrastructure for the long haul.
These stories, messages and narratives we have elevated will endure through the end of this year, into 2025 and beyond. Team ReFrame will be there every step of the way rigorously assessing the data, staying steadfast and visionary in our interventions and continuing to build the narrative north stars we need.
These are undeniably heavy times. Let’s recap what happened on Election Day and look at the possible paths ahead.
Welcome to the latest issue of Signals in the Noise : Election Edition,
These are undeniably heavy times. The weight of the world can feel crushing as we confront ongoing crises and injustices that surround us. From the ongoing genocide on Palestinian genocide to the re-election of Trump, it's natural and right to feel profound grief — for the countless lives we've lost, the dreams deferred, the futures dimmed. We must allow ourselves to sit fully with these difficult emotions, to let them settle in our bones, but we cannot stay there.
The world we must build, rooted in justice, equity, and liberation for all, will not come easily. It requires our sustained vision, collective power, and unyielding determination. Let us draw strength from the legacies of those who have come before us, from the wisdom of our elders; others devoted to justice and goodness in all corners of the world, and from the knowledge that the many will prevail over the few.
Our work continues.
Onward,
hermelinda cortés
Executive Director, ReFrame
Popular narratives include:
Beyond election stories about his victory, Trump and cryptocurrency, the stock market, questions about tariffs and his deportation plans are among trending searches on November 5th as more people woke up to election results. On the right, influencers and loudspeakers are celebratory, and some are shocked at the result because of the ways they have been conditioned to accepting voter fraud narratives.
We’re entering the post-election narrative horse race which, as predicted, has led to a toxic cocktail across legacy media and social media platforms like X, TikTok, YouTube and Meta about which voter bloc or group of people is to blame for Harris losing. Pick your poison; whether it’s men of color for being too sexist to elect a woman president, the Democrats for supporting genocide and alienating their base in favor of nonexistent Republican support, liberals and their narcissism, trans people for merely existing, the entire South and age-old stereotypes and third party voters (even though the math ain’t mathin’ with this argument), everyone is catching strays. In this blame game, we all lose. However, quiet conversations about Biden’s lame duck session imply some are exploring potential demands to push his administration to use his executive powers before Inauguration Day to protect immigrants, pardon political prisoners, enact climate protections or ensure bodily autonomy. Despite all the noise, there are opportunities to expand our bases, build power building coalitions, and sustainable movement narrative and organizing infrastructure for our people to move messages and narratives of community care, mutuality, hope, revolutionary optimism and commitments to the battles up ahead.
Despite the red wave, states across the country voted yes on ballot measures for minimum wage, sick leave and abortion, demonstrating that progressive solutions that will positively impact the lives and livelihoods of everyday Americans is good policy. We will continue to monitor the narrative weather in the days to come as the House of Representatives is still yet to be called, and we’ll be on the lookout for narratives about minority versus majority rule, a narrative we predict will be in conversation in the post-election landscape.
Popular narratives include:
Post-election season burnout is real, but it’s an opportunity to get back into a resiliency practice. If you need to recover, Rooted Respite and Roots of Change Agency are holding a movement support space on November 14th at 5:30 PM EST. Click here for more info.
RadComms will hold space for network members on Friday, November 8th, from 1 to 2 PM EST. RadComms member and somatic practitioner Jess St. Louis will lead a brief workshop focused on somatic centering, being present with stress and resilience at the same time, and returning to the visions that guide our work.
Prism and the Zinn Education project are co-hosting a panel discussion with educators about their visions for liberatory education. Teaching Truths: Educators Speak on Justice & Liberation in the Classroom is part of a series that sheds light on the resilience of educators who resist censorship and repression by teaching the full spectrum of histories of resistance. Register here for the workshop Thursday, November 7th at 6 PM EST.
Join United We Dream Action’s virtual Post-Election Debrief on November 13th to hear positive takeaways, opportunities, and learnings about immigration from this year’s election cycle.
From abolition to bodily autonomy, we need to build power beyond the short term. Convergence has published a running list of resources and tools on blocking MAGA and building solidarity. It will be updated throughout the week. Black Rose/Rosa Negra Anarchist Federation has published Don’t Panic, Organize: Meeting the Moment of Trump’s Second Term, which is full of resources and on-ramps to organizing.
Here is your e-day cheat sheet!!
For this special edition of Signals in the Noise: Election Edition, our team is highlighting the areas we’re closely watching this election week. Team ReFrame is zeroing in on election security and voter fraud narratives, narrative contests in battleground states and mis- and disinformation in the lead-up to Tuesday, November 5th. We’ll be back once the (anxious) excitement of election day settles to analyze the biggest news from the day and elevate the new contours of the narrative ecosystem. (Please note: some of the content linked in this newsletter may upset readers. Viewer discretion is advised.)
Get your pre-and-debunks ready. The volume of misinformation and disinformation is exceptionally high and coordinated, which can be anxiety-inducing for many. This means that it will be important to prebunk and debunk against falsehoods, reminding your audience and those whom they care for and about, to resist amplifying right wing stories and narratives. Acknowledge their concerns but pivot to pro-democracy and narratives about good governance, community care and safety and social solidarity.
This week has been full of head-scratching moments from Maya Rudolph and Kamala Harris in matching suits on SNL to MAGA memeifying animal welfare with P’Nut the squirrel’s death. Unfortunately, we’re gearing up for more madness as we reach the end of the voting phase of the 2024 election.
We are continuing to track America PAC's Election Integrity Community, one of the many platforms used to spread all forms of election-related disinformation and unverified reporting. Battleground states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Arizona are main characters in stories on this platform.
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Here are stories (and light predictions) based on popular content in broader conversations about election security and integrity:
We’re keeping an eye out on #TheFixIsIn, which is by no means new, but is using narratives of voter fraud to spread anti-democratic narratives, claiming institutions are going to steal the election away from Trump.
There is a likelihood that other right wing influencers will leverage content and falsehoods to spread xenophobic, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim narratives post-election. Do folks remember 'antifa bricks'? In the aftermath of the Harris rally in D.C., influencers like Andy Ngo, Charles Downs, Tony Seruga, and Larry Jones Jr. are spreading law and order narratives that first emerged during the summer uprisings of 2020. This particular thread re-elevates anti-BLM stories and disinformation campaigns against antifascists and Palestine solidarity protesters and is a popular story in conversations about the elections this week (October 30th to November 3rd). These “law and order” and “safety and security” narratives and stories about potential pre- and post-election violence may also be used as a red herring to unleash state violence against protestors. In the event of a Trump victory, the right’s narrative frames against protesters and third-party voters may by intentionally or unintentionally reinforced by Harris supporters. Which would expose more audiences across platforms to right wing content and worldviews.
Based on historical precedent and research into decentralized networks, we believe accelerationist organizing is happening in private forums. With prominent right wing figures relying on stochastic terrorism to incite violence, instances of ballot box vandalism, physical altercations and alleged voter security monitors at the polls may influence IRL violence. Organized paramilitary figures or open carry “lone wolves” may rally in state capitols and ballot counting locales in battleground states. Check out Political Research Associates’ activist field guide on the armed far-right and how to respond.
We’re monitoring the gubernatorial elections in Puerto Rico between the third-party darling Juan Dalmau and the pro-statehood MAGA-lite Jenniffer González. Dalmau and the Alianza, or the strategic alliance between the Independence Party and the Citizens’ Victory Movement, have rooted their campaign messaging in narratives of good governance against state corruption and extractive capitalism and are offering an alternative for voters disillusioned by the two-party system. Regardless of the outcome, there are already plenty of lessons for organizers and communicators, including the use of cultural workers, intergenerational storytelling, and leaning into inclusion, hope and social justice.
Want to stay on top of potential mis-and disinformation but don’t have the capacity? The Poynter Institute’s PolitiFact is fact-checking the run-up to Election Day 2024. Follow them for real-time updates and stories.
Post-election season burnout is real, but it’s an opportunity to get back into a resiliency practice. If you need to recover, The Embodiment Institute is hosting a post-election embodiment practice space on Wednesday, November 6th at 12 PM EST. And if you miss that session, Rooted Respite and Roots of Change Agency are holding a movement support space on November 14th at 5:30 PM EST.
Looking for a post-election activation space with movement leaders? M4BL is hosting a post-election town hall on Thursday, November 7th at 6 PM EST. Register for it here. Resist and Build National Network is hosting its post-election day assembly on Monday, November 11th from 12-2 PM ET. Click here for more details and registration information.
