This episode features a conversation with narrative scholar, Michael D. Jones. It was recorded in September 2022.

Mike is Associate Professor at the University of Tennessee Knoxville’s Department of Political Science and faculty fellow at the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy. He got his PhD in Political Science back in 2010 and went on to be a postdoctoral fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University.

Currently, he’s editor-in-chief of the Policy Studies Journal and has published in a broad range of journals including Political Psychology, Social Science Quarterly, Policy and Politics, and Critical Policy Studies, amongst others.

Mike’s primary research interest is policy theory, where he has devoted most of his attention to developing the Narrative Policy Framework, a framework focused on understanding the role of stories in shaping policy processes and outcomes.

Our conversation centres around all things narrative, talking about the building blocks that make up stories, why narratives are better than just presenting facts, and some aspects of narrative design that we ought to pay attention to in our communication efforts.

Additional links:

Michael D. Jones on Twitter

A Narrative Policy Framework: Clear Enough to Be Wrong?

Cultural Characters and Climate Change: How Heroes Shape Our Perception of Climate Science

Communicating Climate Change: Are Stories Better than “Just the Facts”?

Narratives as tools for influencing policy change