Networked Sympathy: Rethinking Human Rights Work on Social Media Using Narrative Persuasion

This book proposes a novel approach to human rights work, advocating the use of narrative persuasion on social media to realign individual moral judgments with fundamental human rights. It challenges the traditional view that human rights are primarily political/legal rights, proposing instead that they should be understood as moral rights, identifying the right not to be harmed as universal, fundamental moral right. By integrating insights from philosophy, social psychology, neuroscience, and communication studies, Linda Walter explores how human rights work can be more effectively carried out on social media. The author uses a case study of the social media campaign "Jamal al-Khatib" to examine the impact of narrative persuasion on changing harmful attitudes. Through qualitative content analysis, she assesses how resistance strategies manifest in the audience's comments and explores the effectiveness of narrative persuasion in overcoming these barriers. The findings reveal the complexities of altering deeply held beliefs but also highlight the potential of narrative persuasion to engage and shift individual attitudes toward human rights.

Linda Walter holds a doctorate from the Faculty of Social and Cultural Sciences at the European University Viadrina. She is the managing director and co-founder of Future Challenges e.V. and an independent consultant. Her research focuses on human rights, social media and narrative persuasion.