Introduction—Stories of the old world: The Narrative Policy Framework in the European context

摘要

Since their evolution, people around the world communicate stories—or narratives; be it ancient customs carried from one generation to the next concerning most diverse subjects such as Christmas, carnival, or agricultural traditions like cattle driveto and from the alpine pastures; be it today's international debates on climate change where for instance Brazil's president Jair Bolsonaro tells the story of “practically untouched” Amazon rain forests1 compared to the climate activist Greta Thunbergwho angrily speaks about collapsing ecosystems and “the beginning of a mass extinction”2; or be it Jeff Bezos, former Amazon CEO, who banned PowerPoint presentations and instead relied on self-written memos that present the issue to be discussed and decided upon in the form of a story.3 In short, narratives are and have always been on everyone's lips. From a neurologic perspective, this is not at all surprising, because narratives are a common form of information processing and communication for humans’ limited cognitive capacities (Berinsky & Kinder, 2006). Stories impose order on a complex and chaotic environment by bundling attention and emotion to certain facets while fading others.