Fighting Post-truth with Fiction: An Inquiry into Using Storification and Embodied Narratives for Evidence-Based Civic Participation

Abstract

Post-truth politics have thrived in the shape of fake news and the feeding of divisive emotional nar- ratives. While stories with strong emotional appeal can mobilize, their current post-truth form erodes the ideals of democracy. Some have called to counter the post-truth populism with evidence-based participa- tion, both online and offline. However, such initiatives overlook that human cognition is constitutively narra- tive and emotional and so are practices of deliberative, participatory democracy. A more viable strategy is to embrace emotional narratives and to mobilize civic participation in forms aligned with democratic ideals through evidence-based storification and gamifica- tion. As such, the attraction to emotional narratives becomes a positive force toward evidence-based en- gagement. To further strengthen the implementation of evidence-based, narrativist, deliberative democracy, we employ and propose the analytical frameworks of (1) storification, the use of explicit emotional narra- tive for engagement purposes; and (2) embodied narratives, the implicit narratives conveyed by the very existence of narratives. Accordingly, we discuss partic- ipation initiatives that highlight the potential of these analytical and design frameworks in positively influ- encing civic engagement.