Listening to Narratives

Now that you know what listening means for Culture Hack, we will define what kind of data we need and how we are going to collect it. In mapping a narrative there is a need to listen to the current conversations relating to it. Listening to narratives mean you would pay attention to the following (among other things):

1. Demographics: Given your point of view, what demographics can you use to refine your listening that will help you discover the significant narrative communities that will emerge from your data (e.g. political affiliation, approximate age, gender, etc)

2. Themes: Given your Point of View, what are the themes you want to analyze in your narrative. (Think about what topics can be derived from the narrative you want to know in depth, perhaps a narrative about the climate crisis may be related to the defense of the territory or indigenous communities; or a narrative about reproductive rights has to do with access to safe abortion, all narratives have topics that are related, make sure you think about what are the different vectors that make up the narrative.)

3. Platforms: In which places (physical or digital) will you carry out your search for information on this narrative? (Specify all the platforms on which you will carry out your search. If there are digital spaces you can consider  Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. You can also search forums and news portals. 

4. Date range: What time period does this span? (Choose a specific moment – preferably in the present – about the narrative you are researching. The dates you choose can revolve around a significant event such as BLM or Fridays For Futures, an important political summit or social movement.)

5. Geography: In what countries, languages, nations or territories are you performing your search? (Generally once you choose the momentum of a conversation you can easily define in which specific territories you want to conduct your search. For example, if we want to explore a narrative related to the decriminalization of abortion in Latin America we could choose some countries like Argentina, Mexico and El Salvador and so on with each conversation you want to listen to.)

Based on your considerations on the 5 points above, you should now be able to indicate how you collect data, in other words, create your strategy:

6. Strategy: How will you collect your data? (This is the most important step to build your listening model, as you will have to define a strategy to collect your data. You could choose to use small listening methods like surveys, in-depth interviews, and manual collection on websites or look for broader patterns using big listening. You can also choose a hybrid strategy.)

If you decide to pursue big listening, and use a search engine for this (outlined in the resources section below), remember to develop your key search criteria by listing a serious of key words corresponding to the narratives you want to listen to (see an example of this in the Indigenous Futures listening model below).

If you are still having trouble here are some questions for you to think about individually or collectively:

• What events have shaped or mobilized public opinion?
• Who has been influential in bringing this narrative to the general public?
• Is your subject related to any mainstream topics?
• If there is no actual conversation about the topic you are working on, what is a broader/related space you can listen and hack into? 

Activity: Defining your listening data

This table is useful to help you define your listening activities; in other words define the data you will listen to. Create as many of these tables as you think necessary for your data collection process.

Listening Data	Description
Demographics
Themes
Platforms
Date range
Geography
Strategy

Listening Data	Description
Demographics
Themes
Platforms
Date range
Geography
Strategy