Imagining 2076
Encouraging storytelling and narratives about protopian futures.
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Entertainment media can play an essential role in developing Americans' understanding of whether, and how, our civic institutions are a place of cooperative problem-solving or a vehicle of division and self-aggrandizement.
How Can stories about Heroes Changing Broken Systems empower Americans to imagine a better future for democracy?
Following our first phase research released in January 2025, we have launched phase two, which offers additional findings plus actionable insights for storytellers and advocates.
In partnership with Harmony Labs, a non-profit media research organization, we offer data-based insights on audiences’ attitudes about democracy, sense of agency, and imagination for the future.
This new round of research offers a deeper look at how different audiences respond to different heroes and types of change. We have also layered traditional demographic data over values-based audiences to offer actionable insights for both entertainment and democracy field partners.
Our work
Building partnerships with studios and helping them establish internal systems to understand the impact of their content before it hits the market
Designing gatherings for creatives, including writers and showrunners, to recognize their role in advancing democracy and work to move audiences on the democracy narrative
Serving as a bridge between experts in democracy and creatives, providing, for example, topical workshops for writers in partnership with democracy organizations
Training democracy advocates in storytelling, using the same data-driven audience insights we have collected for the entertainment industry
Piloting programming with short-form content creators to help them better engage audiences
Working with pro-democracy campaigns that want to offer visions for democracy that meet voters where they are
The lessons we are learning through this work will help storytellers imagine alternative, protopian futures and allow Americans to believe in the possibility of an effective, representative, and responsive democracy, as well as in their agency to bring it to life.
Get Involved
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If you would like to partner with us, host an event to help storytellers explore how to apply these insights to their work, or have ideas to share, please get in touch.