Erik Fluegge

Strong Story Short: Storytelling for Democracy

The political mind is barely influenced by facts and mostly formed by emotions and stories. We tend to believe whatever we're able to imagine. Therefore pictures always outdo numbers. For a long time racists and antidemocrats behaved like dumb idiots. But that has changed. Extreme right wing parties and politicians have become brilliant storytellers.

Their stories aren't long but effective. "The boat is full" needs only four words to create a whole imaginable picture and a whole story in your mind. They have learned how to play.

Do we know it as well? What's our story about the strength of democracy? What's our story about the gains from multilateralism? Why are we fighting their stories with numbers? The truth is we no longer know how to tell the democratic political systems story. We have no picture in mind.

That's what we're going to do. In the workshop we're going to create strong stories as short as possible to tell what we're fighting for. It's worth a try.