Narrative Policy Framework: Narratives as heuristics in the policy process

Abstract

This paper discusses how the assumption that individuals and policy makers do not automatically update their prior beliefs with the new information has shaped policy process theories. Rather than the rational homo economicus, humans are homo narrans: they are more likely to respond to narratives than to expert-based information. The assumption that humans are storytellers is central to the Narrative Policy Framework, which (1) examines the strategic construction of policy narratives by competing coalitions and (2) offers improved measures of narrative elements, strategies, etc., which provide insights into how information is processed by individuals and entire organizations.

Full text

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© Institute for Research in Social Communication, Slovak Academy of Sciences
NARRATIVE POLICY FRAMEWORK: NARRATIVES AS
HEURISTICS IN THE POLICY PROCESS
1
MARCELA VESELKOVÁ
Abstract: This paper discusses how the assumption that individuals and policy makers do not
automatically update their prior beliefs with the new information has shaped policy process theories. Rather
than the rational homo economicus, humans are homo narrans: they are more likely to respond to narratives
than to expert-based information. The assumption that humans are storytellers is central to the Narrative
Policy Framework, which (1) examines the strategic construction of policy narratives by competing coalitions
and (2) offers improved measures of narrative elements, strategies, etc., which provide insights into how
information is processed by individuals and entire organizations.
Key words: narrative policy framework; bounded rationality; policy process theories.
Introduction
Humans are homo narrans and narratives play a central role in how they process information,
communicate, and reason (McBeth, M. D. Jones, & Shanahan, 2014, p. 229). Narratives
are particularly important in the case of “wicked problems” (Rittel & Webber, 1973), such
as climate change or poverty, which are characterized by an intense value-based conflict
between policy coalitions and that resist resolution by appealing to facts (Schon & Rein,
1994, p. 4). This assumption is supported by the growing number of empirical evidence
from fields such as psychology (Kahneman, 2011), health studies (Bekker et al., 2013; Freed,
Clark, Butchart, Singer, & Davis, 2011; Nyhan, Reifler, Richey, & Freed, 2014) and risk
perception theories (Golding, Krimsky, & Plough, 1992; Kahan & Braman, 2006; Kahan,
Braman, Gastil, Slovic, & Mertz, 2007).
The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) therefore starts with the assertion that the
power of policy narratives is worth understanding, especially in the context of the growing
importance of policy marketing and the real-time policy communication driven by twenty-
four-hour news channels and social media (McBeth et al., 2014, p. 225). The NPF attempts
HUMAN AFFAIRS 27, 178–191, 2017 DOI: 10.1515/humaff-2017-0016
1
This work was supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under contract No.
APVV-0880-12 Knowledge Utilization in the Production of Policy Documents in the Policy Process.

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to measure how advocacy coalitions compete to present the most compelling narrative and
whether these narratives influence beliefs at an individual level.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. The following section discusses the
assumption that individuals are boundedly rational in the dominant theories of the policy
process, i.e. Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET), Multiple Streams Approach (MSA) and
Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). It then moves to the NPF, which provides improved
measures of heuristics and can easily be incorporated into existing theories of the policy
process. Section 3 reviews the NPF measures of narrative elements and strategies, as well
as hypotheses about the role of narratives at both the individual and the policy subsystem
level. Section 4 reviews the NPF applications at the micro-level which deliberately examine
the assumption that boundedly rational individuals pay more attention to narratives than to
expert information. The final section is the conclusion.
The assumption of bounded rationality in theories of the policy process
If all individuals and policy-makers were perfect Bayesians, they would update their prior
beliefs when the new information was at their disposal. However, learning is not fully
rational. People often ignore information dissonant with their preexisting beliefs (Weible
& Sabatier, 2009, p. 196). Herbert A. Simon (1955, 1979) therefore proposed an alternative
model of learning in which decision makers are boundedly rational, i.e. limited by cognitive
abilities and resources. In Simon’s view, decision makers should be viewed as satisfiers,
rather than utility maximizers. In other words, they settle for the most acceptable alternative.
The view that individuals are limited in their mental abilities to process incoming
information is widely supported by laboratory experiments. In their pioneering work,
Kahneman and Tversky attempted to obtain a “map of bounded rationality, by exploring the
systematic biases that separate the beliefs that people have and the choices they make from
the optimal beliefs and choices assumed in rational-agent models” (Kahneman, 2003, p.
1449). One line of their research focused on heuristics or mental shortcuts that help people
find adequate, though often imperfect, answers to difficult questions (Kahneman, 2011, p.
98). When confronted with a problem, individuals may choose to limit either the construction
of the problem space or the search for solutions. For example, they may substitute a hard
question, such as “How should financial advisers who prey on the elderly be punished?” with
a related but simpler question, such as “How much anger do I feel when I think of financial
predators?” Kahneman’s research thus posits two systems of information processing:
system 1, which operates automatically and quickly and system 2, which requires conscious
reflection and calculation (hence “thinking fast and slow”).
The wealth of heuristics observed in individual decision-making begs a question: how do
boundedly rational individuals interact in collective decision-making? Do the quick, biased,
emotional decisions of individuals cumulate in organizational decision-making? The issue of
information processing within organizations is addressed by all three dominant policy process
theories, Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (Baumgartner & B. D. Jones, 1993), Multiple
Streams Approach (Kingdon, 1984) and Advocacy Coalition Framework (Sabatier, 1993).
Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Approach (1984) explains agenda setting and decision
making under conditions of ambiguity. There are three types of processes in agenda-setting:

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problems, policies, and politics. These streams are largely separate and are coupled by policy
entrepreneurs when the “window of opportunity” opens. The Multiple Stream Approach
(MSA) rejects the notion of rational decision-making and assumes:
• ambiguity – while more information may (or may not) reduce uncertainty (Wilson, 1989,
p. 228), more information does not reduce ambiguity (Zahariadis, 2007, p. 66)
• bounded rationality – what Kingdon’s concept and Simon’s bounded rationality share is a
focus on attention and search activities: because of cognitive limitations, individuals can
focus on only one issue at a time (Zahariadis, 2007, p. 68)
• limited time – which forces people to make choices before their preferences are clear
(Cairney, 2012, p. 240).
The expert-based information is placed in two of the streams. In the problem stream, the
expert-based information is used to translate a policy issue into a policy problem. However,
this new information may be overestimated or ignored by actors. Furthermore, problems
receive attention based on how they are identified by actors competing for limited attention.
This involves a process of issue framing, assigning causal responsibility or strategic choice
of one measure of a policy problem over others (Kingdon, 1984, pp. 98-9). In the policy
stream, problems are linked with solutions. But whereas attention shifts from one policy
issue to another relatively fast, policy solutions take time to develop. Policy actors therefore
have widely-accepted solutions ready in anticipation of future problems (Cairney, 2012, pp.
234-6).
Punctuated Equilibrium Theory extends the agenda-setting theories to explain why
generally stable political processes are occasionally disrupted by short but intense periods
of policy change (Baumgartner & B. D. Jones, 1993). Like the MSA, it builds on the
assumption that individuals are boundedly rational. However, B.D. Jones (2001) does not
believe that there is a direct bridge between information processing at the individual and
organizational levels. Instead, he argues that formal institutions help overcome individual
behavioral limitations by coordinating the activities of the many and in this way expand
individual capacities to solve problems (B. D. Jones, 2001, p. 82). He gives an example in
which the limits on learning modern medicine are expanded through consultations with
physicians who may in turn consult other experts to help them diagnose the health problem
and propose a treatment. Similarly, parliaments, political parties, committees and other
institutions will work reasonably well in repetitive situations despite individuals being
boundedly rational. However, organizations are not fully adaptive to new information. B. D.
Jones (2001) points out that members of an organization may continue to apply organization
routines even when they should be activating problem-solving approaches. During periods
of stability, they neglect information because they identify cognitively and emotionally with
the existing solutions to a problem. Periods of stability are disrupted by periods of intense
attention given to a certain policy issue, the framing of the problem and mobilization of new
supporters.
The Advocacy Coalition framework was developed by Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1993)
to deal with wicked problems involving substantial goal conflicts, important technical
disputes and multiple actors from several levels of government (Hoppe & Peterse, 1993).
Drawing on the belief system literature of policy participants (March & Simon, 1958;
Putnam, 1976), the ACF views a hierarchical belief system as the most fundamental heuristic

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in policy decision-making. At the top tier are deep core beliefs (ideology) or normative
assumptions about the relative importance of liberty and equality, the relative priority of
the welfare of different groups, or assumptions about whether to accept market outcomes or
intervene in the economy. The deep core beliefs are the product of socialization and therefore
beyond direct empirical challenge; they are akin to a religious conversion (Sabatier, 1993;
Sabatier & Jenkins-Smith, 1999). Policy learning is therefore likely to happen over long
periods of time (Bennett & Howlett, 1992; May, 1992; Sabatier, 1987) or at the level of policy
core beliefs or secondary beliefs.
Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) is the latest theory of the policy process, which
assumes that individuals are boundedly rational. Drawing on literature from a number of
fields such as psychology (Kahneman, 2011), risk perception theories (Kahan & Braman,
2006; Kahan et al., 2007) and policy process theories (B. D. Jones, 2001; Shanahan, M. D.
Jones, & McBeth, 2011, p. 557, fn 4), the NPF assumes individuals to be homo narrans,
who are more likely to respond to narratives than to expert-based information. M. D. Jones,
McBeth, and Shanahan (2014, pp. 11-13) posit the following postulates for the NPF model of
the individual:
1. Individuals are boundedly rational, i.e. make decisions using a limited amount of
information and under time constraints and consequently settle for an acceptable
alternative.
2. Individuals rely on mental shortcuts (known as heuristics) to process information and to
facilitate decision making.
3. Emotion—or “affect” highlights what is important and sets priorities (B. D. Jones, 2001,
pp. 73-74) by assigning positive or negative values to stimuli.
4. There are two types of cognition—an involuntary and automatic System 1 and a
conscious and focused System 2 (see Kahneman, 2011).
5. All concepts and objects in public policy are potentially affect laden (Lodge & Taber,
2005; Morris, Squires, Taber, & Lodge, 2003). System 1 tends to assign affect to
unfamiliar concepts and objects based on the individuals existing understanding of the
world.
6. Individuals suffer from confirmation and disconfirmation bias. This refers to situations
where individuals accept evidence that is in line with their prior beliefs and reject
evidence that is not (Taber & Lodge, 2006).
7. Individuals selectively expose themselves to sources and information that are congruent
with what they already believe (Taber & Lodge, 2006).
8. Individuals use selective exposure, as well as confirmation and disconfirmation bias to
protect their prior identity (Kahan et al., 2007).
9. Individuals process information within social, professional and cultural networks, which
help them to assign affect to social and political concepts and objects (Kahan & Braman,
2006).
10. Narrative is the preferred means for organizing thoughts, memories, affect and other
cognitions (Berinsky & Kinder, 2006; M. D. Jones & Song, 2014), and as such it is the
primary heuristic by which individuals make sense of the world (Polkinghorne, 1988, p. 1).
Based on this model, the NPF argues that policy narratives will play a crucial role in
the policy process. An examination of policy narratives will therefore shed light on belief

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systems operating as an important heuristic in information processing (M.D. Jones et al.,
2014, pp. 15-16). At the same time, the NPF is concerned with strategic manipulation and
examines how individual actors, media or groups strategically construct policy narratives
to achieve their goals or, in other words, how they exploit the irrationalities of individuals
(McBeth & Shanahan, 2004).
The NPF’s contribution to existing research on the role of heuristics in the policy
process is twofold. First, the NPF can be incorporated into existing framework and theories.
Narratives can be viewed as a missing link between external shocks and policy change in
the Punctuated Equilibrium theory, as a tool used by policy entrepreneurs to merge streams
in multiple streams theory, or as containers of stable core policy beliefs, and as political
strategies used by coalitions to expand or contain the conflict within the Advocacy Coalition
Framework (McBeth, Shanahan, Arnell, & Hathaway, 2007, p. 90; Nowlin, 2011, p. 53;
Shanahan, M.D. Jones, McBeth, & Lane, 2013, p. 455).
At the same time, the NPF offers improved measures of heuristics, such as “a way for
policy scholars to empirically measure how policy relevant information is transmitted and
interpreted by both policy elites and the mass public” (Nowlin, 2011, p. 53). So far, the
NPF has made important contributions to the Advocacy Coalition Framework, broadening
it by “marrying bounded rationality and belief systems with an interpretation of social
construction in assessing how coalitions engage in strategic framing” (Weible et al., 2011,
p. 353). The focus centers on measures of ACF concepts such as belief systems, policy
learning, public opinion and strategy (Weible et al., 2011, p. 353). The following section
discusses these measures in more detail.
Narrative policy framework: improved measures of narratives
NPF scholars were not the first to examine the role of policy narratives in the policy process.
The “argumentative turn” in policy analysis (see Fischer & Forester, 1993) began with the
recognition that public policy constructed through language is the product of argumentation
(Fischer & Gottweis, 2012, p. 2). Since the late 1980s, a number of scholars have studied
the role of narratives in public policy (e.g., Roe, 1994; Stone, 1989). However, these
postpositivist approaches to the study of the policy process were criticized by proponents of
the traditional social science approach to hypothesis testing. Sabatier (2000, p. 183) argued
that narrative policy analysis failed to provide clear concepts and falsifiable hypotheses and
as such “demonstrated very little concern with being sufficiently clear to be proven wrong”.
The NPF addresses the criticism of postpositivist approaches to the study of narratives
in two ways. First, it demonstrates that policy elements, such as characters or plots can be
reliably quantified (McBeth, Shanahan, & M.D. Jones, 2005). It utilizes the seminal work
of Deborah Stone (1989, 2001) who argued that narratives are more powerful than evidence-
based knowledge in shaping how people view policies. Stone focuses on the various forms
these stories take. She is particularly interested in the use of narratives to produce fact bias;
more precisely, she seeks to understand how “political actors use narrative story lines and
symbolic devices to manipulate so-called issue characteristics, all the while making it seem
as though they are simply describing facts” (Stone, 1989, p. 283). Every policy narrative is a
causal story (intentional, inadvertent, mechanical or accidental) that does not merely explain

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how the world works but assigns responsibility for problems. Political actors use these causal
stories to assign blame, to identify oppressors and their victims and to claim the right to
intervene. Political actors will therefore be more interested in crafting stories with relatively
strong, pure positions—accident and intent—rather than relatively weak, mixed positions—
mechanical and inadvertent cause.
Building on Stone (1989, 2001), the NPF argues that a policy narrative includes a (1)
clear policy stance and (2) at least one character who is cast as a hero or a potential fixer
of the problem, a villain who is causing the problem or a victim who is harmed by the
problem (Shanahan et al., 2013, p. 457). Contrary to the postpositivists, who view the form
and content of each narrative as unique, the NPF embraces a structuralist interpretation of
narratives, asserting that consistent policy components are used across competing narratives
(McBeth et al., 2014, p. 228). These components include (1) narrative elements (the use
of story type, causal mechanism, policy solution, characters and the science), (2) narrative
strategies (diffusion or concentration of costs and benefits, the use of condensation symbols,
policy surrogates and the devil shift) and (3) policy beliefs, which are operationalized
through narrative elements, such as different use of heroes and victims (Shanahan et al.,
2013).
Consider the following example. In their study of Cape Wind’s proposal to install
wind turbines off Nantucket, Shanahan et al. (2013) use content analysis to examine public
consumption documents, such as newsletters, editorial opinion pieces, speeches and reports
disseminated in the public domain by Pro-Wind and Anti-Wind coalitions (Shanahan et
al. 2013, p. 457). The Anti-Wind coalition identified the victim as Native American Tribes
whose sacred lands would be destroyed, whereas the Pro-Wind coalition cast the Koch
Brothers as villains who value their view more than clean energy for the rest of us. Finally,
Cape Wind and Associates were depicted as heroes determined to fix the problem because
they wished to site the wind farm off Cape Cod. Policy beliefs are then identified from the
use of characters in the policy narratives and calculated to achieve a - 1.00 to + 1.00 scale.
Shanahan et al. (2013, pp. 465-6) test three distinct belief systems: The Polis-Market Belief,
Nature-Human Relationship, and Conservation-Business Belief. The individual vs. public
or common interests policy belief was anchored in Stone’s (2001) polis vs. market model or
self-interests vs. public or common interests and calculated using victims cast as individuals
(rate-payer, voter) and victims cast as groups (sacred grounds, the environment).
The human–nature policy belief was calculated using human and wildlife/environment
victims and measures the extent to which competing coalitions harbor biocentric or
anthropocentric values. Finally, the business–conservation policy belief was calculated
using heroes cast either as conservationist or pro-business and is centered on the jobs versus
environment belief. Statistically significant differences across each coalition’s policy beliefs
indicate the “wickedness” of the policy problem.
The second contribution of the NPF to the existing literature is related to a number of
testable and falsifiable hypotheses at both the individual and policy level (see M. D. Jones et
al., 2014, p. 14, 17-18). At the policy or meso level, the NPF scholars proposed a number of
hypotheses related to the narrative strategies, policy beliefs and policy learning (see M. D.
Jones et al., 2014, pp. 17-18). The first set of hypotheses is related to the scope of the conflict,
i.e. groups or individuals will use narrative elements to (1) expand the conflict to get others

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involved and increase the size of their coalition or (2) contain the conflict to discourage
others from getting involved (M. D. Jones & McBeth, 2010; McBeth et al., 2007; Shanahan
et al., 2011; Shanahan et al., 2013):
1. Identifying winners and losers: to expand the issue and mobilize opposition to change
the status quo, a coalition will portray itself as losing; to maintain the status quo, the
coalition will portray itself as winning.
2. Construction of benefits and costs: to expand the issue, the coalition will describe the
opposing policy alternative as diffusing costs and concentrating benefits, to contain
the issue, the coalition will describe its own policy solution as concentrating costs and
diffusing benefits.
3. Condensation symbols: losing groups use condensation symbols more often than winning
groups to expand the conflict.
4. The policy surrogate: losing groups are more likely to entangle policy issues in larger,
emotionally charged debates to expand the scope of the policy issue.
The NPF scholars also found support for the “Devil Shift” hypothesis (see Sabatier et al.,
1987), which refers to a high-conflict situation in which political actors overstate the power
and “evilness” of their opponents and understate their own power (Shanahan et al., 2011;
Shanahan et al., 2013). The devil shift is measured as the significantly higher use of villains
in the policy narratives compared to the competing coalition. Finally, it was hypothesized
that advocacy coalitions with stronger bonds are more likely to influence policy outcomes
(Shanahan et al., 2011; Shanahan et al., 2013). At the meso-level, NPF scholars are thus
concerned with the ways belief systems influence the strategic construction of the policy
narratives.
At the micro-level, the NPF is concerned with how narratives shape individual opinions
about the policy issue. In contrast to the above-discussed theories of the policy process,
which merely assume individuals to be boundedly rational, the NPF uses experimental and
within-subjects designs to examine this assumption (Sabatier, 2007). So far, the following
hypotheses have been tested (see M. D. Jones, McBeth, & Shanahan, 2014, p. 14):
H1: Congruence and Incongruence: individuals are more likely to be persuaded by a
narrative, which is similar to their own understanding of the world (Lybecker, McBeth,
& Kusko, 2013; McBeth, Shanahan, Hathaway, Tigert, & Sampson, 2010; M. D. Jones &
Song, 2014).
H2: The Power of Characters: the way narrative characters (heroes, victims, and villains)
are portrayed is more likely to influence opinions than expert information (M. D. Jones,
2010, 2013).
H3: Narrative Transportation: the more a reader becomes immersed in a story, the more
likely the narrative will persuade him (M. D. Jones, 2014).
The existing NPF research provides persuasive evidence that individuals are boundedly
rational. McBeth, Lybecker, and Garner (2010) and Lybecker et al. (2013) found that
individuals were more likely to support recycling efforts if the issue was congruent with their
beliefs (H1). Both conservatives and liberals supported conservative frames of recycling,
whereas liberal frames were supported only by liberals. Furthermore, individuals with a more
engaged view of citizenship (participatory, global and committed to social justice) supported
the engaged and duty-based recycling frames, whereas duty-based citizens (voting, obeying

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the law and proud of their nation) supported only duty-based recycling frames. Similarly,
Jones and Song (2014) found that individuals engage in confirmation and disconfirmation
bias when exposed to culturally nuanced story frames and filter information embedded in
stories in accordance with their prior beliefs. As a result, respondents are better at cognitively
organizing information from culturally congruent stories. Regarding H2, M. D. Jones (2013)
found that the character of the hero was most important in influencing citizen perceptions of
climate change. So far, there is little evidence of H3. M. D. Jones (2014a) did not find that
narratives are more likely to persuade individuals about climate change than fact lists.
NPF applications at the micro-level
Past applications of the NPF have focused on environmental issues (see McBeth, Shanahan,
Hathaway et al., 2010; M. D. Jones, 2013; Lybecker et al., 2013; Shanahan et al., 2013).
However, the content of each story is by definition unique, i.e. environmental narratives
cannot be morphed into a narrative about an unrelated topic (M. D. Jones et al., 2014, p. 5).
To moderate the problem of narrative relativity, M. D. Jones and McBeth (2010) propose
populating stories with content derived from tried and tested belief system measures such as
cultural theory (Thompson, Ellis, & Wildavsky 1990), ideology (Barker & Tinnick, 2006;
Lakoff, 2002), cultural cognition (Kahan & Braman, 2006) or moral psychology (Haidt,
2007). Context independent narrative elements such as characters and settings can then be
populated by content already imbued with generalizable meaning (M. D. Jones & Song,
2014, p. 450).
The following example illustrates how the NPF utilizes cultural theory (CT). CT
measures belief systems along grid and group dimensions (see Thompson et al., 1990). The
former measures levels of group interaction, the latter the degree to which these groups are
expected to constrain beliefs and behavior. Each quadrant produced by the two dimensions
represents a distinct view of nature: fatalist, hierarchic, individualist, and egalitarian. The
culturally specific climate change policy narratives are listed in Table 1. M. D. Jones (2013,
2014) and M. D. Jones and Song (2014) used these stories to construct experimental narrative
treatments and test the influence of the narrative.
In M. D. Jones and Song (2014), each treatment story has the same stymied progress
plot (Stone, 2001): climate change is real, some progress toward dealing with it has been
made; however, that effort has now been halted by the other two cultural types. For example,
the egalitarian story frame identified the Club of Rome as a hierarch villain and the Cato
Institute as an individualist villain. Every story offers also the favored policy solution of that
specific cultural type, such as nuclear energy favored by hierarchs or market mechanisms
favored by individualists. Respondents (who were identified as a certain cultural type
based on a survey) are then randomly assigned to read one of the experimental treatments
or a control list consisting of general information about climate change and the projected
consequences. Following the exposure, the respondents are asked to sort words or phrases
related to climate change into categories. The findings of this study indicate that story frames
matter for cognition to occur in line with a motivated reasoning model of the individual:
both egalitarians and individualists are better at cognitively organizing information from
culturally congruent stories, a clear indication of confirmation bias. M. D. Jones (2013)

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Table 1. Climate change narrative summary
Setting Characters Plot Moral
fixed referents within
the story that few contest
(Stone, 2001)
a villain who harms a
victim and a hero who
offers a solution to either
prevent or stop the victim
from being harmed
ties characters with the
setting and usually assigns
blame and/or causality
(Stone, 1989)
a policy narrative culminates
in a policy solution (Stone,
2001)
Profligacy: An
Egalitarian Story
a fragile world where
humans have overstepped
their bounds
profit-driven
corporations are the
villains, groups that
seek the elimination of
greenhouse gasses are
heroes
selfishness has driven the
environment to the brink of
destruction
humankind is doomed if
it does not correct for past
mistakes; policy solution:
renewable resources
Lack of Global Planning:
A Hierarchical Story
a world where humans
have not properly
managed economic and
societal systems to allow
for sustainable growth
impartial scientists and
the government that
employs them are heroes,
the Cato Institute is a
villain
runaway markets have led
to excessive economic and
population growth
increased scientific
management and
governmental intervention
will curtail climate change;
policy solution: expert-
driven solutions like nuclear
energy
Business as Usual: An
Individualistic Story
groups such as the
Cato Institute and
organizations like the
Wall Street Journal are
heroes, the Club of Rome
is the villain
global climate change story
was fabricated by generally
na ve but dangerous
idealists (egalitarians) and
self-interested government
representatives (hierarchs)
allow market forces to move
naturally as individuals
compete and innovate to
create new technologies that
reduce carbon emissions
and allow adaptation; policy
solution: market solutions
such as cap-and-trade on
GHGs
Source: M. D. Jones (2014a, p. 652).

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examines whether narrative communication structures influence individual perceptions of
risk and policy preferences related to climate change. Here, the setting and the plot of the
story, as well as the victim are held constant. However, heroes and villains, as well as the
policy solution championed by the hero character, are experimentally manipulated. Each
narrative thus assumes two villains, who are heroes in one of the opposing narratives. The
control narrative presents the same information as the setting section of the treatments but
bulleted in list form. The findings suggest that narrative structure plays a prominent role
in shaping policy preferences regarding climate change and character affect. Respondents
showed higher levels of affect for the hero and lower levels of affect for the villain after being
exposed to a cultural narrative. This implies that narrative structure helps people form initial
emotional assessments of characters, which then play an important role in helping people
support the arguments imbedded in the narrative (M. D. Jones, 2013, p. 22).
The following study illustrates the positivist approach of the NPF to the study of
narratives. M. D. Jones (2014a) conducted a micro-level analysis of the impact of policy
narratives about climate change on individual opinion. He was particularly interested in
narrative transportation or the process by which people become involved in a story. As
people experience strong emotions, they may forget about the real-world facts that contradict
assertions made by the narrative and experience a belief change (M. D. Jones, 2014a, p.
648). To test the narrative transportation hypothesis, M. D. Jones conducted the following
experiment. He randomly assigned respondents to one of four experimental tracks. The
first group (or the control group) was asked to read lists of facts about climate change taken
from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007) report. The remaining three
groups were presented with culturally specific climate change policy narratives. As in
M.D. Jones (2013), approximately one quarter of each cultural narrative varied in terms of
heroes, villains, and policy solutions. The findings do not support the idea that narratives
are any more transportive than fact lists in directly persuading respondents to accept specific
climate change policies. Nevertheless, exposure to the narratives influenced affect for hero
characters, which indirectly influences the persuasiveness of a story (see also M. D. Jones,
2014b).
Narrative policy framework and policy communication
This paper discussed the assumption that individuals rely on heuristics or mental shortcuts
when processing incoming information. Specifically, the paper focused on the Narrative
Policy Framework, a quantitative, structuralist, and positivist approach to the study of policy
narratives (M. D. Jones & McBeth, 2010, p. 330), which offers methodological tools for
studying how individuals process policy-relevant information (M.D. Jones & McBeth, 2010;
McBeth et al., 2007; McBeth et al., 2010; Shanahan et al., 2013).
The contribution of the NPF is twofold. First, the NPF operationalizes narratives and
provides improved measures of narrative elements, strategies, etc., which provides insights
into how the information is processed by both individuals and entire organizations. Second, in
contrast to dominant theories of the policy process, which merely assume that individuals are
boundedly rational, the NPF deliberately tests this assumption. The existing research provides
evidence that individuals engage in confirmation and disconfirmation bias, i.e. pay more

188
attention to information which is in line with their existing beliefs and reject information,
which contradicts their prior beliefs (Lybecker et al., 2013; McBeth et al., 2010; M. D.
Jones & Song, 2014). Furthermore, populating the narratives with heroes and villains makes
people more responsive to arguments in the policy narratives than to simple fact sheets (M.
D. Jones, 2013). These findings have important implications for the political communication
of so-called “wicked problems” (Rittel & Webber, 1973), which are characterized by high
uncertainty, complexity, and polarization. In other words, the way policy makers construct
their policy narratives matters a lot for effective policy communication. The strategic
construction of policy narratives to achieve policy goals is the main focus of NPF scholars at
the group or coalitional level. NPF scholars examine how coalitions use narratives to attract
more members or, on the contrary, to discourage greater involvement in the policy issue
(McBeth et al., 2007) and how they reconfigure policy narrative elements to alter the policy
landscape without any new information or events (Shanahan et al., 2011). The NPF’s focus on
the strategic construction of policy narratives by competing coalitions and their impact on the
public opinion thus offers promising contributions to the theorizing about the policy process.
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Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences,
Institute of Public Policy,
Comenius University Bratislava,
Mlynské luhy 4,
821 05 Bratislava,
Slovakia
Email: marcela.veselkova@gmail.com