Advancing the Narrative Policy Framework: (Digital) Innovations and Challenges

Abstract

Digital innovations have changed the way individuals and policy actors consume and participate in the public debate and policy making - thus offering great opportunities but also pose major challenges for public policy making and policy process research. Technological advancements provide an opportunity to advance participatory and deliberative democracy and provide data-driven policymaking. This includes for example the increased accessibility to information, grassroots-movements and mobilisations spanning across nation-state borders, and the use of digital platforms by governments to collect citizens’ data or input on policy matters. Digital innovations are, at the same time, associated with issues of disinformation, social media bubbles and polarisation, data security and privacy, and the question of digital (il)literacy in diverse populations. Research on the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) has started to embrace these challenges and to make use of the opportunities. NPF scholars have demonstrated the usefulness of social media platforms as a source for narrative data, explored the use of big data analysis and automated coding in NPF studies, and furthered the theoretical understanding of the role of narratives in times of disinformation. Still, to keep the NPF "good enough to be relevant", there is a need for the continuing development of the framework to study different sets of data from diverse communicative forums while simultaneously refining its components to account for example for (mis)use of facts and polarisation in the public debate. Dedicated to the advancement of NPF research, this panel invites papers that use the NPF to study challenges and opportunities of policymaking in the digital era, or use digital methodological innovations in the NPF study of narratives. Panel chairs also welcome theoretical contributions and contributions not relating to the section theme.

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