I’m a filmmaker and narrative strategist specialising in communicating existential risk – primarily climate change, AI safety, and concentration of elite power.
We are living through an era of accelerated crisis, requiring drastic change. We must communicate that to ordinary people in a way they can comprehend to build the public support that empowers lawmakers.
Culture drives policy – so we must drive culture.
method
Better information doesn’t change minds, but better stories can. And the stories being told about the biggest risks facing humanity are almost entirely controlled by the industries profiting from those risks.
Traditional impact work focuses on messaging and metrics, but I’m more interested in breaking through psychological defences through entertainment, imagination, and parasocial relationships.
Why?
According to neuroscience, most people can’t process existential risk directly. It feels abstract and causes anxiety, which triggers defence mechanisms that force us to deflect or shut down.
However, narrative transportation brings psychological defences down, creating a safe container for unsafe feelings, and providing a cognitive distance that allows people to experience complex truths through emotion first.
People emerge from a compelling story having processed something they would have scrolled past in a news article, because an entertainment-based experience activates the same neural systems as real experience – giving us the chance to model risk, but also potential alternatives as we try to build a positive future.
See my work in:
AI Safety — Climate — Writing — Community Building
And read my bio here.
Jessica Riches 