Narrative Change - Reframing Migration Narratives Toolkit

"The power of a reframing approach is that you build your appeals on community-owned stories and values that easily resonate and from there, through an open and inclusive process of listening to each other's conversations, you can actually quite forcefully challenge populist views."

This toolkit contains a set of practice-centred resources and guidelines for progressive campaigners and activists/advocates working to put diversity and inclusion back on the public/policy agenda and to counter populist narratives around migration. The resource is based on a reframing approach that can be applied to narrative change work to positively rebalance public debate around divisive issues.

The toolkit was developed by the International Centre for Policy Advocacy (ICPA) as a component of the project Reframe the Debate: New Migration Narratives for Constructive Dialogue (2017-2019) in Germany. As the IPCA explains, "populist rhetoric around frames of cultural invasion, the perceived threat of Islam and loss of control/security is setting the migration agenda in Germany and elsewhere. This fear-driven discourse is becoming more mainstream, setting the boundaries of 'acceptable' policy choices to measures driven by protection, security and exclusion."

Based on international practice of narrative change campaigns, the approach is designed to engage the middle sections of society in order to push back on the mainstreaming of populist narratives. It is based on the recognition that the standard approaches of only arguing facts and rights is not serving the progressive agenda and that, as more and more populists influence the migration debate in Europe, there is a need to try something different to rebalance the public discussion. "The common mythbusting and rights-only arguments of progressives are not proving effective in engaging the wider public in this emotionally charged debate. Not only do these approaches not resonate, they often get angry responses."

The approach recognises that progressive campaigners tend to see all those outside their supporter group in a rather negative light. However, there is a large group in the so-called "movable middle" that can be convinced and mobilised to help push back the populist mainstreaming process. In practice, the approach means leading with positive, solution-oriented stories, built on "common sense" values that resonate with and engage the middle and also challenge prevalent populist views. The approach does not mean changing people's position - "it is just a more emotionally smart approach to opening dialogue with a crucial audience. Trust and space is then created for a full and frank exchange of views."

According to ICPA, Europe in general is the main focus for these guidelines with a greater emphasis on Germany and the United Kingdom (UK). However, it also draws on practice from the United States (US) and at the global level, and, as the narrative challenges in the debate are often quite similar everywhere, it is hoped that the toolkit can offer campaigning insights for all people facing similar challenges.

The toolkit includes the following sections:

• Why a framing approach? - describes current challenges and how a framing approach can work to shift the dominant narrative around migration.
• Reframing guidelines - offers a step-by-step approach to building a narrative change campaign, consisting of the following 5 steps:
  1. Find a focus and opening - consists of 5 elements that guide activists in the development of a campaign strategy, including identifying a narrative focus and an opening or opportunities for engaging the middle audience.
  2. Build out the elements - consists of 8 elements and is based on the strategy defined in the first step. The focus turns to building out all the necessary parts of a narrative change campaign that go together to trigger a positive, warm response in the identified intended segment(s). This then serves as a basis to engage them constructively in dialogue on the issue and includes messages, stories, slogans and hashtags, and the use of evidence.
  3. Prepare for responses and engagement - acts as a bridging step that comes after the hard work of building out the campaign elements and before the actual launch of the campaign. It includes the need to test the responses to planned campaign messaging from the middle segment(s), adapt the approach and materials accordingly, and prepare the team.
  4. Run the campaign - deals with the final preparations and covers the actual implementation of the campaign.
  5. Evaluate reach and uptake - focuses on campaign evaluation and looks at how to measure reach, response, and uptake, and how to collect data, share, and reflect.
• Campaign cases - offers 10 real-world cases of campaigns or campaign-supporting initiatives that embraced a narrative change/reframing approach seeking to reach the middle and aiming to change the public narrative on migration in a more progressive manner. For example, to challenge growing anti-Muslim sentiment, British Future developed a campaign called the "Poppy Hijab", which commemorates the 400,000 Muslim soldiers who died fighting for Britain in World War I. Launched around the centenary of World War I in 2014, they made a hijab featuring the commemorative poppy and launched it in the commonly migrant-sceptical and right-wing newspaper The Daily Telegraph under the slogan "Proudly British - Proudly Muslim".
• Core lessons - offers a set of cards with core lessons from the toolkit. Each card has links to a page in the guidelines that explain the card in more detail.
• Core tools - Resources, planning tools and worksheets - collates all existing resources in the toolkit and in some instances provides extra more portable and downloadable versions of these resources.
• Toolkit FAQ - answers frequently asked questions about the reframing approach and the changing of public narratives.