Narrative Empathy

Abstract

Understanding the reasoning behind diverse views grows empathy and can help strengthen democracy. This study examines narratives and their influence on individuals, to see if individuals only empathize with narratives from those with whom they share identity. Using an experimental design, we test empathy with working class climate change narratives. Results showed participants who agreed with anthropogenic climate change, who were given both evidence and a narrative, empathized with the narrator (either an organic farmer or a mechanic) that told a pro-climate change narrative. The greatest empathy was for the mechanic telling a pro-climate change narrative. Conversely, participants who did not agree with human-caused climate change and who were given evidence without narrative had more empathy for the organic farmer (over the mechanic) who told a pro-climate change narrative. Overall, we found some identity issues negatively influenced empathy, but we also found examples where individuals moved beyond their identity.

Narratives and expert information in agenda‐setting: Experimental evidence on state legislator engagement with artificial intelligence policy

“…In line with Ertas (2015) and McBeth et al (2014), NPF scholars have undertaken efforts recently to analyze the role of narrators themselves, for example by assessing how narrator (in)congruence and trust affects persuasiveness (Lybecker et al, 2022; McBeth et al, 2022). Our study elaborates on Petridou and Mintrom (2021) in showing how policy entrepreneurs may have the freedom within a given policy issue to operate as knowledge/information brokers (brokering expertise), or alternatively as policy narrators (marketing narratives) with implications for their level of influence.…”

“…Therefore, there are competing expectations regarding which policy entrepreneurship strategies are most influential to policymakers in the case of complex, emerging technologies. On one hand, carefully crafted narratives may be more effective than facts (McBeth et al, 2022), especially if policy entrepreneurs have successfully framed AI in terms of implications that might capture the public's attention, such as impacts on ethics, racial injustice, inequality, or job displacement. 2 Yet, science and technology policy typically rests at the bottom of public issue priorities ( Jones et al, 2009).…”

Note From the Editor

“…Adding to the journal's contributions on diplomacy, political communication, and social media (see Huda 2018; McBeth, Lybecker, and Sargent 2022), in our opening article this time Collins and De Witt (2023) show that words clearly matter in their excellent examination of how the tweets of Presidents Obama and Trump have affected U.S. foreign policy and now form a central strand of America's soft power.…”

Powerful stories of local climate action: Comparing the evolution of narratives using the “narrative rate” index

“…These narratives describe a story and “[…] provide understanding of policy actors and their views of who causes the problems, who can solve problems, and who is harmed by problems.” (McBeth et al, 2014, p. 51). The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) (Shanahan et al, 2013) examines the role that policy narratives play in the public policy process (McBeth et al, 2014, p. 45) and provides a useful theoretical framework for investigating them against the background of local climate policy action (McBeth et al, 2022). As narratives are an important part of local discourses, especially when it comes to dynamic policy fields like climate action (Bevan et al, 2020), we show that Discourse Network Analysis (DNA) (Leifeld, 2017) is a suitable methodological approach to study narratives in the context of the NPF (Shanahan et al, 2018).…”