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Takeaways from the 2026 Story Movements Conference
Population Media Center (PMC) recently returned from the 2026 Story Movements conference, the biennial convening organized by the Center for Media & Social Impact (CMSI) in Washington, D.C. The event brought together filmmakers, journalists, researchers, comedians, and media strategists to explore how storytelling can drive real-world change.
Elizabeth Borg, our Vice President of Development; Amy Henderson Riley, DrPH, our Director of Research, Evaluation, and Impact; Samuel DiChiara, our Research Associate; and Katie Elder, our Development Specialist, attended the convening on behalf of PMC and captured key insights and emerging connections across the two-day program. Amy also led a Fishbowl session, a 5-minute open discussion to talk about ways of working for maximum impact.
For the team at Population Media Center, the conference was a chance to connect with colleagues about where the field is headed and what it takes to meet this moment.
Here’s what we’re taking away.
1. Narrative Change Must Work at the Systems Level
When we talk about narrative change, we need to be working at the level of the whole system not just highlighting individual stories of people trying to cope within a broken one. Individual stories can be powerful, but on their own they don’t shift the structural narratives that need to change.
2. Combating Dis/Misinformation Starts with Trust
When working to counter dis/misinformation, the most important starting point is trust-building, not just messaging strategy, but actual, relational trust. This raises a real strategic question for those using entertainment and storytelling to create change: what are all the forms trust-building takes in our work?
3. Storytellers Are Movement Infrastructure
The conference reinforced what PMC believes: storytellers are crucial. Across sessions, there was a shared recognition that investing in storytellers is what sustains long-term narrative change. In hard moments, narrative change doesn’t become optional, it becomes necessary.
PMC walked away from this convening with sharpened thinking, new and continued collaborators, and a renewed sense of urgency. We’re thinking deeply about how to measure and track narratives at the systems level, how to embed trust at the center of our work, and how to ensure our stories reach the audiences who need them most.
Because at the end of the day, the question isn’t just what story we’re living right now. It’s what story we to inhabit instead.
