Big Tech Narrative Initiative - Online Convening

Learnings from the Convening

Tuesday, 3 December, 2024 | Online

We convened for a one-day online event on Tuesday, 3 December, 2024 to develop our collective knowledge and strategy moving forward. Throughout the event, we highlighted the role storytelling has in shaping the way our societies interact and engage with Big Tech, focusing on the intersections of Big Tech with democracy, human rights, national security, gender rights, youth political engagement, journalism, cultural spaces, and more.

Some of the conversations and presentations that took place included:

Big Tech: A Story Of Power

Unpacking how the story of Big Tech has appeared to move from connection, community and entertainment to mass surveillance, control of information systems, and the merger of tech power with state power - and that the latter has been the truth of Big Tech all along.

Big TV on our Big (and small) Screens

An analysis of what mainstream media, film and television has served the public when it comes to stories about technological developments and Big Tech. Analysing mainstream English language film and TV between 2010-2024, Doc Society found most stories were centred around CIS white, heterosexual, men from the global north, men as tech innovators, whistleblowers, heroes utilising tech, rebelling against tech with tech, romantically connecting with robotic/tech-enhanced/AI women. Most of the stories were serious, with a large sub-genre of techno-thrillers and a smaller sub-genre of satirising tech innovators. When it came to non-fiction, Doc Society found a large focus on male tech innovators, online communities, and more recently a shift to look at problems within the structures of Big Tech - though not a huge amount of non-fiction broke through, which is a question to address as we build narrative strategy in this area.

What is the public feeling about all of this?

The main takeaway from reviewing studies and findings on public opinion regarding Big Tech was that the data shows growing concerns about Big Tech, its data practices, its impact on democracy, and the lack of agency we have in using Big Tech products - and this is stronger in localities where Big Tech is viewed as a reason for the spread of misinformation and societal polarization. People want technology in their life, just not like this - support for regulation, transparency, and diversification is wide.

The Stories We Need to be Telling

A panel conversation with journalists, youth activists, and human rights defenders on “The Stories We Need to be Telling” to address this moment of technological upheaval and online social disordering

As part of the online event, we also hosted a creative showcase of five film projects dealing with issues surrounding Big Tech and technological elements of modern society in time sensitive, creative, and innovative manners. The showcase served to drum up excitement for these stories in their various stages of production.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the kickoff - we can’t wait to continue this work with all of you.

Big Tech is the shorthand for the for-profit digital infrastructures that have reshaped the way we consume media, interact with each other, and view the world around us. Big Tech is intrinsically linked to what is now a highly polluted information ecosystem, and the resulting polarisation of citizens around multiple and diverse social issues.

It is associated with companies like Meta and Google using algorithms designed to maximise engagement to drive a business model that promotes sensational, misleading, false, or straight up conspiratorial content, with dangerous real-world implications on elections, public health, climate action, gender politics, mental health, and more.

With the rapid escalation of generative AI, it’s easier than ever to create false news, fake images and videos, drowning out factual information that gets absorbed not only by citizens, but by traditional media and journalism platforms. Yet Big Tech monopolies remain largely unaccountable, their algorithms and platforms continuously working for clicks and profit, not for people.

But this is not the only story.

Online communities are not exclusively spaces for discrimination and hate, but for joy, belonging and solidarity: from online connection providing lifelines for LGBTQ+ youth, to global fandoms using social media for social activism.

Tech can help us take back control of our information ecosystem. With scientists and campaigners working tirelessly to provide the tools so that citizens can make sense of the content around them. Meanwhile new methods of community participation are being modelled with open source deliberative democracy platforms like Decidim and Pol.is showing how millions of citizens can get involved in policy.

Citizens, communities, decision makers - we all need new narratives to help make sense of this moment in history. To understand the tech revolution around us and happening to us. It's up to storytellers, filmmakers, journalists to help bring this into the light. It’s time to listen, learn, and build a narrative strategy together.

More about our partners, The Citizens

The Citizens was founded in 2020 by Pulitzer-nominated journalist Carole Cadwalladr in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica/Facebook scandal. This is where we incubate investigative journalism, and experimental forms of storytelling, campaigns around subjects we care about - data rights, disinformation, platform accountability and how they impact democracy.

Project Citizen is our new documentary production studio enabling us to expand our work to bring these subjects to a global audience. Collectively our vision for the two organisations is to contribute to the defence of democratic societies and institutions by Investigating and exposing the tactics and narratives right-wing populists and authoritarians use to undermine democratic values globally. Delivering compelling human-led storytelling that translates important but abstract subjects into breakthrough content that allows us to reach many more people. Finally by Creating public demand for structural reform, our storytelling allows us to to mobilise public support for our advocacy objectives including strategic litigation, campaigns and coalitions.

Co-hosts

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