How the Narrative R&D Lab aims to transform America’s approach to poverty and flourishing

Rewriting the Story of Economic Opportunity

Harmony Labs

Muted_Blue

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Advancing systemic equality means recognizing and activating the distinct strengths of each audience

How Do We All Contribute?

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Our values shape how we think about equity, fairness, and who deserves support

How Should We Achieve Flourishing?

People’s beliefs about control shape their views on success and systemic change

Where Does Agency Live?

The practice of humanities is alive and well—just not in the spaces you’d necessarily expect

Humanities Unbound

Harmony_Orange

Deep_Salmon

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Effective narratives on systemic equality can make room for every kind of hero

Read on Medium: Changemakers of All Stripes

True progress on equality depends on aligning on the destination, even if paths diverge

Where Are We On Equality?

Building a Better Framework for Understanding Audiences

The Science and Strategy of Segmentation

With organic media that supports democratic values

Earning Audience Attention

Riki Conrey

Deep_Purple

A participatory process to define a shared narrative goal for systemic equality

Stories, Systems, & Solidarity

Race Forward

Our new survey system reveals audiences’ deep stories, connecting attitudes and opinions with media consumption patterns

How to Uncover Deep Stories

Expanding YouTube audiences by tapping into unique curiosity

New Curiosity Frontiers

Democracy stories in entertainment are not only prevalent, they are also popular and persuasive.

Imagining A More Democratic Future

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Register now for our latest research briefing on January 14, 2025 @ 12 pm ET

Research Briefing: The Power of Story To Grow Democracy

Bridging the Thanksgiving Divide with Television

A New Thanksgiving Recipe

On the problem of young men online, games, play, arousal, and transgression

Danger! Young Men At Play

Brian Waniewski

Caroline Hayes

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Part 2—Our Commitments

Responsible AI at Harmony Labs 

Surfacing narratives from audience engagement with media content close up

Narratives, Triggering Content, Transcendence

Sem Devillart

Addressing housing policy means understanding the core—and deeply personal—narratives underlying our daily lives: our homes. 

Housing Stories on YouTube

Behavioral media research to build a foundation for narrative impact

Towards Transformation in Education

On Olympic drag queens, iconography, subtle visual patterns and how we analyze them

Visual Language and Narrative Power

Muted_Green

What Makes Our Infrastructure Unique and Why That Matters

Data that Delivers

Hero Image for Capturable Curiosity for Civic Engagement

Reimagining online knowledge to facilitate and deepen Latino engagement in U.S. civic life

Capturable Curiosity for Civic Engagement

Equis

Winning Decarbonization By Making Stuff Cooler—Then the Planet

Audiences for Electrics

Rewiring America

Bright_Green

Exploring one narrative associated with political violence in the United States, its audiences, and resilience building opportunities among young men

The Ultranationalist Narrative in Media

We polled people on political violence, democracy, and civil war after they watched the film’s trailer.

Alex Garland’s Civil War May Normalize Political Violence

Aditi Juneja

Understanding the stories and characters that capture Latino attention

Main Character Energy

Highlighting Our Biggest Wins & Notable Insights from 2023

Looking Back to See Forward

Part 1—Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Headed

Responsible AI at Harmony Labs

Learn more about the next frontier in climate communications from these January, 2024 learning sessions. 

Watch On-demand: New Climate Research Briefings

The Potential Beyond News and Politics to Engage New Audiences

Expanding the Climate Conversation

Understanding Audiences to Create the Climate We Need 

The Case for Culture-Forward Climate Communications

Samantha Wright

Watch a recording of our 11/01/2023 webinar where we share a first-of-its-kind map of storyscapes and talk with partners about putting this research into practice.

A Home for Every Hero Webinar

A first-of-its-kind online resource for crafting inclusive storytelling

A Home for Every Hero

Gutsy Media

Updates from the Lab

Stories for racial repair in U.S. media

Building a Narrative for Reparations: Closing the Hope Gap

Liberation Ventures

The Multiverse As Reality Model

Andres Leon-Geyer

Ishita Srivastava, Chief of Narrative and Culture Change at Caring Across Generations, on changing the narrative landscape of care

From Research to Campaign: Audience Strategy for Narratives of Care

From research to GIFs to narrative change

Making a Meme

Nuclear Threat Initiative

TaskForce

Challenging problematic narratives on Asian American and Pacific Islander experiences with Narrative Initiative

On The Model Minority Myth, and More

Narrative Initiative

Mini discoveries from our work with media

What We’re Into: Thursday, April 13

Audience-Centered Advocacy : Toward a New Model?

Researching & reshaping our relationship to media

A New Year for Harmony Labs

Storytelling strategist Liz Manne on content-forward narrative change for health equity

The Art of Creative for Narrative Strategy

Join us on 2/28/23 @ 1 pm ET for a deep dive into recent research focused on improving healthcare and public health.

Health Equity Narratives Webinar

Using Storytelling to Trigger Epiphany, Action, and Change

What’s the Metastory?

Michael Ahn

How fixing my own flawed story about racism in healthcare systems helped find a pathway to a better, truer story for many.

Healthcare’s Narrative Emergency

Kirk Cheyfitz

Process & Practice Reflections

Narrative Strategy for Racial Equity

Melinda Weekes-Laidlow

Supporting our efforts to prototype a Democratic Media Index

Harmony Labs Wins IMAGINE Grant

How Americans encounter guns: Mixed methods content analysis of YouTube and internet search data

Platform Recommendations to Empower Influencers Driving Civic Engagement

Professional data equity experts on how they practice

Equity in Research… For Equity in Health

Exploring civic information ecosystems online to identify "the new op-ed"

Media Consumption in the American Midwest

Researching Americans' exposure to firearms in media as a step toward firearm safety intervention

Guns: An All-American Story

A deep-dive into our values-based audiences for narrative and cultural change

ICYMI: Audiences 101

Harmony’s latest projects and success stories

Monthly Round-Up: June 2022

Creating an audience-narrative architecture for health equity

In Search of Healthy Narratives

Using data to derive the pro-democracy narratives we need

Democracy in the Media

Rewriting the nuclear story for U.S. audiences

The Unhinged Apocalypse of Fallout & Rick and Morty

Race Forward’s Butterfly Lab in conversation with Harmony Labs

Art for Pro-Immigration Narratives

How Young Latinos’ Online and TV Habits Offer Political Clues for 2022

Monthly Round Up: April 2022

Young Latino men may be 'easy targets' for disinformation on immigration, report says

Latinx encounters with immigration stories in the US media

Finding the Immigrant Story

Testing Storytelling Intervention Strategies Against Narratives of Economic Mobility

Imagining a World Without Poverty

Women's Way

Purpose

How The West Virginia Community Development Hub Used the Narrative Observatory @Harmony Labs to Build Transformative Visual Media

When Data Met Art: Redefining Narratives of Poverty Through Research-Driven Storytelling

The West Virginia Community Development Hub

How Harmony Labs Supported Black Artists Studying AI in Mozilla’s 2021 Creative Media Awards Program

AI Advocacy, Impact Design, & Racial Justice

What’s Next for the Narrative Observatory @Harmony Labs

Trailblazing Data-Driven Narrative Change

New research mapping 4 information ecosystems for Latinos on YouTube

El Nuevo Noticiero

Exploring the terrain of deeply held narratives about how the world works, what matters, and what’s possible.

Narrative Observatory @ Harmony Labs

Introducing Our New Advisory Board

Audience @ Heart

Dispatches from Data Science: Selling the Ending

AI, Art & Advocacy

from The Harry Potter Alliance and Harmony Labs

Mapping Fandoms and Fan Activism Futures

Fandom Forward

A Poverty of Attention: Poverty and Economic Mobility in the Media

Data Infrastructure for Culture Change

What’s a Narrative? Update #1

The Most Common Narrative About Tech Is Not What You Think: Robot Vacuums and Wishes Granted

Designing for and measuring the impact of art for advocacy

New Story Homes Wanted:   A Case for Smaller, Nobler Lies

What do Hamilton, Post Malone, Dolly Parton and Axl Rose have in common?

What the Narrative Observatory Should Be

What’s a Narrative?

Growing Our Data, Growing Our Network

Misinformation, Disinformation, and the Role of the 4th Estate: a Recap of Harmony Labs’ 6/24 Livestream Discussion

From a “Flight to Quality” to “Attending to Compassion and Empathy”: a Recap of Harmony Labs’ 5/27 Livestream Discussion

Mapping media consumption across TV, the internet, and the news

What Media Matters for Latinx Americans?

Evaluating the fake news problem at the scale of the information ecosystem

What to Do About Disinformation — Content for Citizen Resilience!

Asch Harwood

Learning from cable news’ Trump-Russia coverage

A New Approach for Understanding the Media Ecosystem

The Mass Shooting

Anatomy of a News Media Event

Does more engagement mean your message is resonating with more people? For politicians campaigning on social media, focusing too much on shares and likes might be a mistake.

Viral Political Ads May Not Be As Persuasive As You Think

The Neuroscience of Decision-Making in 2016

VR: Going Beyond the Empathy Machine

Researcher Corinne Brenner was invited to attend PyGotham 2015, here are some of her reflections.

PyGotham 2015

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Rewriting the Story of Economic Opportunity

by Harmony Labs Aug 7, 2025

How Do We All Contribute?

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How Should We Achieve Flourishing?

by Harmony Labs Jul 30, 2025

Where Does Agency Live?

by Harmony Labs Jul 17, 2025

Humanities Unbound

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Humanities Unbound

Read on Medium: Changemakers of All Stripes

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