Cognitive, Creative & Cultural Humanity / Narrative, Story and Meaning
SUB-T07-032Narrative Manipulation
Definition
Narrative Manipulation examines narrative manipulation within the broader domain of how people and communities create identity, purpose and shared meaning through stories.
Why this matters
Narrative Manipulation can materially affect human agency, capability, belonging, livelihoods, culture, trust, resilience and long-term societal outcomes.
Research questions
Under which conditions does narrative manipulation improve human and system outcomes, how do effects vary across populations and contexts, and what safeguards prevent dependency, exclusion, distortion or loss of agency?
Hypotheses
A transparent, participatory and human-directed approach to narrative manipulation, with explicit safeguards and longitudinal evaluation, will improve narrative coherence; authenticity; agency; meaning; memory accuracy; audience understanding; manipulation resistance compared with opaque, automation-first or short-term approaches.
Proposed methods
narrative analysis; interviews; longitudinal biography studies; controlled storytelling tasks; audience interpretation; manipulation testing; literature and policy review; expert and affected-user interviews; reproducibility testing; methods adapted specifically to Narrative Manipulation
Stakeholders and beneficiaries
creators; cultural custodians; communities; educators; researchers; publishers; platforms; collecting societies; libraries; archives; museums; regulators; funders