Focus on: Narrative Dynamics

Stories don’t exist in isolation but are influenced by, respond to, and interact with other stories in different ways. Narrative dynamics is best understood as an umbrella term for all kinds of relationships, hostile or symbiotic, competitive or complementary, local or global, between narrative phenomena.

A narrative dynamics perspective views the public sphere as an environment, ecosystem or market where ideas, values, beliefs, attitudes, worldviews and norms are circulated, modified, negotiated, and exchanged in complex transactions which can’t be reduced to a binary logic of narrative and counter-narrative. Originally developed for the study of migration narratives, the concept has recently been expanded to cover phenomena like post-truth storytelling, conspiracy theories, fake news, toxic narratives, and propaganda to account for current crises and uncertainties.