Story Tech

Personal stories have the power to stir the heart, compel us to act, and spark social change. While advocacy organizations have long used storytelling in campaigns, the role technology plays has increased. Today, invitations to share your story are widespread on advocacy organizations and political campaigns websites, calls to action, and social media pages. But what happens after one clicks share? And how does this affect which voices we hearand which we dontin public discourse? Story Tech explores the increasingly influential impact of technologiessuch as databases, algorithms, and digital story banksthat are usually invisible to the public. It shows that hidden story tech enables political organizations to treat stories as data that can be queried for storylines and used to intervene in news and information cycles in real time. In particular, the authors review successful story-centered campaigns that helped change dominant narratives on disability rights, marriage equality, and essential workers rights in the United States and Australia. They compare the use of storytelling advocacy across different types of organizations including volunteer grassroots groups, large national advocacy coalitions, and trade unions, and examine how trends differ for storytellers, organizers, and their technology partners. As political stories shift to being on demand, they reshape power relationships in key public debates in ways that produce moments of tension as well as positive narrative change. Story Tech examines the shift toward political story on demand and illustrates how storytelling success canand shouldbe achieved in conjunction with personal dignity, privacy, and empowerment for storytellers and their communities, particularly marginalized ones.