Challenging Cultural Assumptions In Our Work
Common Cause has worked for many years to help challenge cultural influences that serve to erode intrinsic values or that work to strengthen extrinsic values. We have focused attention on the advertising industry, media, the arts and cultural sector, and sport. Sometimes we have taken aim at the broader political movements that accelerate these processes […]
As the Murdoch era draws to a close, it’s time for a mainstream media that recognises its role in elevating intrinsic values
It seems fitting that, the week after Rupert Murdoch’s resignation as Chair of Fox News and News Corp, I find myself at the Responsible Media Forum’s 11th Annual Mirror or Movers Conference “dedicated to investigating, debating and challenging the impacts of media content on society and the environment”. It would be hard to understate the […]
This Barbie Wants Narrative Change
[This blog contains (minor) spoilers of the Barbie movie.] Undoubtedly, there can be very few human beings on the face of the planet that have managed to escape the knowledge that, this summer, a new pink-tastic blockbuster movie hit cinema screens across the world. Directed by the once indie-filmmaker, Greta Gerwig, the Barbie movie came […]
Could animal freedom campaigners and LGBT+ rights campaigners work together for the benefit of all? The answer is in their shared values…
Dr Rob Udale, who leads Animal Think Tank’s Narrative research project, recently conducted research which found that orienting an audience to a social justice issue (LGBT+ rights) led to stronger expressions of support for animal freedom. This seemed to us to be a great example of bleedover between values underpinning concern for social justice and […]
Are we beginning to see a backlash in the mainstream against the excessive importance placed on extrinsic values?
This week, a group of online ‘influencers’ have come under fire for sharing glowing videos of a paid trip to a factory in China owned by controversial fast fashion retailer, Shein. The company has previously been accused of abusing workers and breaching rules around working hours. The public reaction to what has been called “propaganda” […]
Might mainstream news reporting contribute to the ‘values perception gap’ and why might it matter?
In the UK we have almost become accustomed to seeing headlines in (mostly) right wing and conservative media about refugees and people seeking asylum that have famously included ‘The Swarm in Our Streets’ and more recently focussed on government plans to ‘stop the boats’. But do these messages, and the values that underpin them, truly […]
Save the human animal earthlings
Many years ago Amnesty International ran a marketing campaign with the strapline “Save the Human”. When I first noticed it on the tube, I saw it as an attempt to encourage people who donate to conservation charities to pause and reassess their priorities. Before donating to help save the tiger, or the bees, the slogan […]
To unpathed waters, undreamed shores*
Over the past few years there has been rising interest in the transformative power of social (sometimes referred to as collective or public) imagination and the idea that we urgently need to invest in imaginative practice if we are to see real and ambitious solutions to global problems like climate destruction. Thinkers, like Geoff Mulgan, […]
What we’ve valued this year
We hope that our email finds you well and warm, or that it doesn’t find you at all, as you are far away from your device resting and restoring. As we come to the end of the Gregorian year we’d like to share with you our favourite cultural experiences of the year which embody the values […]
Will the RSPB stand with striking workers?
The RSPB’s charitable purpose, as enshrined in its Royal Charter, is to conserve wild birds and other wildlife. This objective can be interpreted very unambitiously. It could be taken as a mandate to help by marginally slowing the collapse of UK biodiversity. Nature conservation, when construed narrowly, untainted by association with other fraught political issues, […]