We do this by:
First, we use a social media listening tool to identify the most divisive news stories.
Next, we dive into the conversation to identify how different people are talking about the story.
Then, we present at least two widely held perspectives within each side's own terms.
Finally, we relate these perspectives back to the morals and values driving them.
While writing his masters' thesis on the evolution and divergence of narratives around political events, Shaun observed a real-life example of his theory in the August 25 Kenosha, Wisconsin, shooting. He quickly sketched out his observation and shared it on Twitter.
Many people found that original tweet so useful that they requested the same sort of analysis for other divisive news events. As a result, Shaun decided to start publishing news analyses on the email newsletter platform Substack.
Donors saw value and potential in this small Substack operation, and the Narratives Project received funding to expand from a side project into a full-fledged non-profit.
The Narratives Project moved off of Substack and onto its own website for more flexibility in how our content is presented.
We experimented to find the best way to present our ideas and insights to the world. Our goal is to make our analysis timely, quick to read, and simple to understand.
After spending two years learning about ideas that divide us, the news industry, psychology, and much more — we're working with Citable to develop a news product for the twenty-first century.