Narratives as tools for influencing policy change

Deserai Crow and Michael Jones

Narratives as tools for influencing policy change

Narratives are critical to policy, but some pitfalls should be avoided. Policy professionals should avoid a ‘knowledge fallacy’, that people will agree with a policy if they just have more knowledge, and an ‘empathy fallacy’, that people will connect with a policy if its story is told in an empathetic way. Narratives are especially helpful at certain ‘intervention points’.