Social Cohesion: Alternative Narratives and Literacy
Australian local governments are grappling with the impacts of harmful narratives – including hate speech, disinformation and harassment. These are exacerbated by rapid technological advancements, enabled by social media, and often manipulated by malign actors to proliferate hate, polarisation and reduce social cohesion.
At a time of rising interpersonal disconnection and compounding societal crises, sensationalist and divisive narratives are successful in their ability to engage people emotionally, creating harmful narratives that seemingly connect the individual experience with collective stories.
These narratives are designed to manipulate public sentiment and grievances about legitimate issues such as the cost of living or the housing crisis to promote division, diminishing social cohesion. They also build on existing resentments and social distrust to decrease trust in institutions, like local governments tasked with critical service provision and policymaking.
Alternative narratives provide a powerful antidote, offering coherent storytelling and sensemaking, and the ability to engage with the emotional underpinnings encouraging people to endorse harmful narratives. Such narratives use ‘pro-social messages’, focusing on social values, tolerance and democracy to challenge the divisive ‘solutions’ proposed by more extreme and harmful discourse. Alternative narratives shift away from partisan of polarised framing of issues, with demonstrated effectiveness in encouraging reconciliation activities even among populations affected by protracted inter-group conflict.
Local government is uniquely positioned to provide alternative narratives to divisive and hate speech, with their understanding of local contexts; connections across communities; ability to identify early-warning signs of division and foster dialogue to protect social cohesion. Recognising this urgent need, and potential for novel response, the Municipal Association of Victoria is providing a suite of supports to Victorian local governments to build capabilities and pilot initiatives to address and prevent harm using alternative narratives.
STAND Australia : Alternative Narratives Applied Training for Councils
MAV has partnered with Italian non‑profit Institute for International Economic Cooperation (ICEI), as Australian partner in the Strengthening Towns’ Activation for new Narratives on Diversity (STAND) Project, a European initiative funded by the European Union in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Poland, focused on developing strategies and equipping local governments to identify and dismantle harmful and divisive narratives and create alternative narratives.
The project provides a practical framework for councils to work with communities and not-for-profit organisations to deconstruct divisive narratives and co-design and construct alternative narratives that build trust, inclusion, resilience and social cohesion. It focuses on issues such as racism, anti-migrant sentiment, religious intolerance, misogyny, antisemitism, Islamophobia, homelessness, and discrimination against minority groups.
In STAND, Councils are supported through training, tools and Community of Practice to develop alternative narratives that promote community understanding and connection. The focus of the project is not on people who are deeply committed to divisive views, but on community members who may be more easily influenced or persuaded by those views.
The Feed: Digital Literacy Tool
The Feed is a set of 33 short, playable modules that don't explain online manipulation — they let you feel it, then pull back the curtain and hand you the countermove. Municipal Association of Victoria is working with Dare to be Grey (NL) to tailor The Feed content and scenarios to suit local Australian contexts. This mirrors the process used in Europe: conversations and workshops with different stakeholders, gathering their input and needs, using that to build the Australian version, and then piloting, testing and refining.
The Feed maps to recognised media-literacy frameworks — including DigComp 2.2 and UNESCO MIL.Every module lands on one concrete takeaway: a manipulation technique the learner can now name, and a habit they've just practised — from spotting outrage bait, to checking a source before sharing, to recognising when a "theory" has quietly turned into prejudice. Every module runs the same three beats:
01 / hook / Pull you in
Each module opens as a real-looking feed - a slot machine, a For You page, a viral post - and briefly manipulates you. No lecture. You're playing before you notice.
02 / reveal / Show the wires
Then it stops and names the exact technique that just worked on you – the variable reward, the curiosity gap, the outrage bait - using your own behaviour as the evidence.
03 / antidote / Hand you the move
You don't just read the fix - you rehearse it. Building habits you can use in the real world.
SIX THEME AREAS
- Algorithms & attention
- Manipulation & fakes
- Conspiracy & polarisation
- Commerce & dark patterns
- Privacy & your data
- Emotion & wellbeing.
This platform allows development of hyper-local versions for use in specific instances, tailoring the whole experience to the issues, narratives and places people are actually encountering, moving beyond generic media literacy to be immediately relevant to people’s everyday environment. This hyper-localisation capacity offers a unique and world-leading opportunity for local government.