Combating disinformation is complex.
Our inaugural Storytelling Fellows explored how storytelling can help combat mis and disinformation.
During the year we discussed which segments of the population were most at risk and what kinds of interventions could be most effective. We brought in professionals from across the impact storytelling ecosystem from campaigners fighting digital hate to impact producers thinking about how to strategically reach the audiences most needed for the projects.
What emerged were 8 fantastic projects. Most are prototypes, works in progress, and are looking for support with their next steps.
Everything I Know About Lois Wale
Deborah Shorindé
When a Black girl goes missing from Old Crown High School, the socially exiled Kemi B. must overcome her checkered past and figure out: Where is Lois Wale? And why is no one else looking for her?
Everything I Know About Lois Wale is a story about how truth and lies travel and how fiction can quickly become fact in a close-knit community. Through a series of 3 artistic interventions, this mixed media project will explore afro-surrealist perspectives and consider how ‘truth’ and trauma so often intertwine in Black and Brown communities.
The first iteration of this project is a sculptural artwork and narrative audio feature that aims to address history in real time and create a space to mourn the loss of Black and Brown people who have gone missing in recent years and whose cases have never been solved.
Contact:
Museum of Truth and Lies (MoT&L)
Yasmin Khan
Museum of Truth and Lies is a podcast series accompanied by a playful Muse-Zine.
MoT&L seeks to inspire the next generation of museum curators, policymakers, and creatives to be better truth-tellers. Its mission is to empower museum visitors to be inquisitive and maintain trust.
Yasmin is the podcast host and a socially engaged curator who brings together a diverse range of commentators and cultural leaders in deep conversation. Through these rare encounters, they debate how to curb misinformation in our cultural institutions and collections.
The series of extraordinary interviews with grassroots artists, activists, and influential changemakers explore critical questions such as ‘Do you believe what museums show you?’ ‘Are museums telling the full truth? and ‘What stories are missing?’.
Each podcast episode will signpost listeners to an artist-illustrated Muse-Zine. The published toolkit will contain a co-created board game that animates the WISDOM manifesto - MoT&L’s 6 dimensions of truth-telling in museums.
Contact:
Truth Detectives: Information Literacy Skills of Conspiracy Theorists
Daria Cybulska
The narrative around information literacy skills sounds similar to how conspiracy theorists talk about research. Shared phrases include: “Check your sources”, “don’t immediately trust what you see”, connect the dots, think about who funded the information, do your own research.
Are information literacy educators closer than we realise to the conspiracy theorists’ approach to engaging with information? If so, what can educators learn from “the other side”? What are the conspiracists getting right?
‘Truth Detectives’ is a project consisting of a short graphic novel and accompanying research. It seeks to pinpoint the weaknesses inherent in the skill set of conspiracy theorists, highlighting how orientation towards pure excitement of discovery can lead to susceptibility to manipulative ideas. It also underscores their strengths, notably their emotional astuteness and ability to engage with individuals marginalised within society. The overall goal is to humanise the discussion around conspiracists and offer learning opportunities coming from the “other side”.
Contact:
Solomon’s Secret
Cecilie Steenbuch Traberg
Solomon’s Secret is a digital murder mystery game designed to challenge
the minds of Generation Z and delve into the psychology of misinformation and influence. Rooted in rigorous psychological research and evidence and crafted through a collaboration between game studio Mothworks and Cambridge psychologist Cecilie Traberg, this gripping narrative game illustrates how people can be manipulated by false information.
The narrative unfolds at a nostalgic high school reunion dinner party, where a diverse cast of characters gathers at the manor of a wealthy old classmate, Solomon Asch. When Solomon is murdered, the guests are thrust into a deadly game of locked doors, escape-room-like puzzles, and mutual suspicion.
In this allegory for misinformation, players must identify motives behind lies, recognise their own biases, and understand characters’ influence strategies to solve the puzzle. Therefore, Solomon’s Secret is both an engaging game and an educational tool on the psychology of influence and persuasion.
More about Cecilie Steenbuch Traberg
Contact:
@cecilie.traberg | cecilietraberg.com
With Wellness
Al Hopwood
With Wellness is a TV comedy satire that asks us to think critically about the narratives we weave for ourselves and the world around us. It explores how our online identities have been reduced and commodified, while satirising the dizzying array of solutions, treatments and tinctures offered by a booming wellness, coaching and therapy industry. It is a modern Icarus tale that explores the feeling that we’re just not quite good enough that perfection isn’t just about looking great, but also having a hero story that shows we can triumph against the odds.
With Wellness is a TV adaptation of Al Hopwood’s acclaimed multi-platform satirical art project WITH based at withyou.co.uk. Described by critics as ‘the most original artist project in Britain today’, the project uses surreal humour, satire and social commentary to critique the darker tendencies of the transformation economy. With Wellness builds on this legacy through a darkly comic narrative that charts the experiences of clients who receive the company’s bizarre and troubling Life Enhancement Solutions.
Contact:
ah@alhopwoodstudio.com | alhopwoodstudio.com | withyou.co.uk
Whose Truth? Native Advertising in News
Hina Siddiq
Whose Truth? Observes the role of brand studios at news organisations, exploring how they supporting publishers, as well as how the native advertising can be misinterpreted as real editorial news. Using entertainment to share information and develop media literacy, the final project is a pilot TV show entitled ‘The Agency’, set in the fictional brand studio of INN, an international news channel.
‘The Agency’ is a comedy-drama about an intern who joins INN, and is confused by why the company works with a questionable government – one where influencers have disappeared. The show observes the ethical dilemmas news publishers face in accepting revenue from countries ranking low on press freedom.
To support education, additional materials include diagrams, decks, and promotional reels showing audiences the creative and strategic processes used in producing native advertising. ‘The Agency’ aims to invite audiences to question sources, stories, and funding models in news.
Contact:
@mzhenna | hinasiddiq.com
Climate Compass
Caroline Sinders, Jake Charles Rees, Rachel Briscoe and Sophie Hollows
Climate Compass is a narrative risk management framework. It addresses the dual threats of disinformation and climate change. Developments in the information ecosystem have caused the idea of truth itself to become contested. This, and the overwhelming noise from mis- and dis-information, is the backdrop for the climate movement. Climate Compass uses participatory archiving and strategy game as a foundation for generating narratives which navigate these risks.
The past archive is a tool for climate communicators to think about what has worked in the past, and what might be needed in the future. A timeline maps the evolution of the information space and major policy decisions, as well as both positive and negative climate campaigns, illuminating how storytelling has shaped the current political discourse. The future is addressed through a scenario planning game. This creates a space to explore potential climate negative scenarios and identify the role that storytelling could play in mitigating the impact of these.
Empire Of Reality: Understanding The Perception Of The Real Through Hallucinations
Luke Kemp, Professor Patricia Kingori and Caroline Sinders
From pop-culture and media coverage, there is a skewed view of what it means to experience hallucinations. We seek to develop a data-driven Audio and AR episodic storytelling device providing insights and lived experiences from the hearing voice community. We seek to expand empathy and understanding of hallucinations and non-consensus perceptions.
We will foreground person-centred perspectives to question the very nature of what we call ‘reality’ while establishing the breadth and depth of hallucinations. We aim to confront misconceptions and create a space of understanding, and de-stigmatising hallucinations through an interactive, experimental and educational series of artistic experiences. Through the lens of hallucinations, we aim to disrupt conventional definitions of consensus reality and instead embrace a reality that contains multitudes and forces us to question, what is real?
