Stories and images

• cultural power • the climate movement • social movement history
How does picturing, narrating, & dramatising the issues matter for:
  • changing the ‘climate of opinion’?
  • building social movements?
  • shifting the ‘political climate’- creating conditions where social movement goals can be achieved?
Featured:
Some key themes of this website:
Stories & images are ‘everywhere’ in the work of social movements

• images bring complex issues into sharp focus
• stories ‘translate’ facts into narratives, featuring characters who we identify with 
• political theatre portrays ‘stories that we can see’. It keeps us engaged, wondering ‘what will happen next?’ 

Stories and images play a key role in:

  • defining what is at stake
  • ‘waking us up’ to what is happening
  • building political will
  • strengthening or eroding legitimacy
  • creating a node around which political action takes place
  • shifting the ‘climate of opinion‘
  • building a political climate where it becomes more possible to achieve social movements’ goals. 
Again and again, conservatives and the far-right exert power using stories and images:
  • “Build the Wall“, “Make America Great Again“, ‘Drain the Swamp’ and the imagined threat of refugees, climate scientists, ‘Muslims’ or ‘the stolen 2020 election’ have nothing to do with reality- 
  • yet the far-right has used stories and images like these to create a new political reality, and develop a hold on the imagination of large sections of the public.
  • the resulting ‘climate of opinion’ – even if it is believed only in the far-right ‘base’  – can become a powerful obstacle to achieving progressive goals. Trump mobilised stories and images [among other factors] to gain office in 2016, and he looks set to continue to shape political dynamics in the US.
  • Progressives do not always answer powerfully with stories and images of our own.
  • We can try using the facts, however it usually takes stories and images to make the facts compelling.
Sometimes, politics is boiled down to a contest between ‘organised people’ & ‘organised money’.

These factors are clearly central, however at any point, a movement of ‘organised people’ may have high or low levels of the ‘cultural power’ that is generated by stories, images and drama. 

This website treats ‘people power’ and ‘cultural power‘ as two different ‘axes‘ or ‘dimensions’ of power, and makes the case that building high levels of both:

  • makes social movements stronger
  • changes the ‘political climate’ in ways that make broader change more achievable 
  • counteracts opponents’ capacity to strengthen their ‘base’ and ‘win hearts and minds’
  • generates political will

(See also: ‘Combining ‘people power’ and cultural power’).

Whose stories and images are the strongest?
  • Stories and images matter for defining ‘the problem’ and envisaging pathways towards a solution.
  • They can make the issues visible, focused, tangible and emotionally compelling, avoiding the political consequences when the issues remain invisible, unfocused, intangible and emotionally flat. 
  • When opponents prevail in the “battle of images”, there are plenty of cases of  massive setbacks for progressive movements. By contrast, many of the historic gains made by movements of the past could not have been achieved without the impact of stories, images and drama.
The ‘cultural power’ of stories and images works in tandem with other forms of power
  • People power, cultural power, legal power, economic leverage and other forms of power work in tandem.
  • No form of power is enough to  achieve sustained change by itself (in this way, ‘cultural power’ is just like any other form of power).

  • As case studies on this site illustrate, cultural power works as a distinct form of power that is often essential for achieving change: what would happen in climate politics without the stories and images used by both climate deniers and by the climate movement?  
Greta Thunberg, outside the Swedish parliament.

 

 

 

 

Images above:

[adapted from] Antarctica – Neko Harbour (Rita Willaert). Selma, 1965: confrontation between police and marchers (Spider Martin / GPA Photo Archive). Donald Trump speaking with supporters at a Make America Great Again campaign rally in Arizona (Gage Skidmore, Flickr). A Valentines Day message to the banks: “Risk the Reef and You’re Dumped”. Global Divestment Day, Sydney, 2015. (350). Ende Gelände – “this far and no further” (Tim Wagner / 350) Greta Thunberg outside the Swedish parliament (Anders Hellberg / Wikimedia Commons). Also, ‘our house is on fire: Schulstreik_für_den_Klimaschutz_19-03-29 Jakob Huber/Campact.