Storytelling for Social Change: Leveraging Documentary and Comedy for Public Engagement in Global Poverty

Abstract

Narrative is essential for public engagement with global poverty. Stand Up Planet, a documentary about global development, was produced to evaluate the effects of a little-utilized nonfiction comedy narrative. Using a pretest-posttest experimental design, this study examines shifts in U.S. audience engagement with global poverty after watching Stand Up Planet, compared with a somber documentary, The End Game. Both documentaries increased awareness of global poverty, support for government aid, knowledge, and intended actions. However, Stand Up Planet produced significantly larger gains in awareness, knowledge, and actions; these effects were mediated by the narrative's relatability, positive emotions, and entertainment value. The End Game's effects were mediated by narrative transportation and negative emotions. Implications for narrative in social change campaigns are discussed.

Likes, comments, action! An examination of the Facebook audience engagement strategies used by strategic impact documentary

“…Emotive storylines help to transport an audience, suspending their questioning of the facts (Green and Brock, 2000; Moyer-Guse, 2008). Emotive storylines can also guide behaviour (Dillard and Meijinders, 2002) through a gateway effect (Borum Chattoo and Feldman, 2017). In this way, entertaining or positive documentary narratives can lead to audiences trusting the media message more (Borum Chattoo and Feldman, 2017; Campolo, 2012), while negative documentary narratives can lead to heightened inclinations to discuss issues (Landreville and LaMarre, 2011) and narratives with fearful messages can lead to increased levels of paranoia (Houghton et al, 2017).…”

Lyrical lessons: The potential of informative comedy music as supplementary teaching material

“…Comedy in the media has also been shown to be effective in challenging gender roles and femininity through characters who did not fit traditional molds such as Lucille Ball in the 1950s (White 2016) and in educating audiences about racial issues and reducing racial tension such as with Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle starting in the 1980s (Green & Linders 2016). Furthermore, when researchers tested the effectiveness of a nonfiction comedy narrative regarding global poverty versus a somber documentary on the same topic, the humour narrative "produced significantly larger gains in awareness, knowledge, and actions" (Chattoo & Feldman 2017). Because of the unique nature of comedy that contains potential educational material, the researcher has created the term 'informative comedy' to label this type of humour content.…”

Communication, Social Movements, and Collective Action: Toward a New Research Agenda in Communication for Development and Social Change

“…Also, drawing on a post‐structuralism perspective applied to network approaches and contemporary social movements, Brunner () explores how “the movement of the social” leads to changing relationships between actors from social movement, private sector, and government, and puts forward the notion of “wild public networks” as a theoretical concept that helps to trace the unpredictable and evolving nature of movement building and action with a particular focus on communication dynamics. Chattoo and Feldman () focuses on a private‐sector‐supported initiative and brings together concepts and approaches such as storytelling and edutainment in order to explore how audiovisual narratives enhance audience involvement, facilitate greater public engagement, and lead to individual and collective action. This attempt to connect engagement with documentary narratives and collective action is a bold effort to push the boundaries of conventional assessments of audience reaction to media content.…”

“…What theoretical and practice implications do they have? While initiatives such as Stand Up Planet and their focus on documentaries for change (Chattoo & Feldman, ) could well be defined as efforts aimed at triggering mobilization of social actors and stakeholders toward a common cause, they are framed as a movement, like current global development initiatives such as efforts to end open defecation (Ahmad, ; UNICEF, , ). Does this trend illustrate the reconfiguration of the concept of social movements toward a continuum of movements that originate “from above” or “from below,” with goals that range from challenging power structures to advancing common development goals?…”

“…For instance, while some papers explore the spontaneous nature of movements, others focus on whether they are primarily about collective behavior or collective action (Turner & Killian, ). Chattoo and Feldman () discusses how audiovisual approaches and different types of narratives and messaging may trigger greater public engagement. Brunner () expands our understanding of the unpredictable and constant shifts in relationships in a highly interconnected communication environment and their influence on citizens' behaviors and collective mobilization and action.…”