Policy Story or Gory Story? Narrative Policy Framework Analysis of Buffalo Field Campaign's YouTube Videos

Abstract

Abstract Interest groups are increasingly turning to new media such as YouTube as vehicles for indirect lobbying. Such a visual medium provides unprecedented ability for interest groups to enter into and have influence on public policy debates through dissemination of policy preferences to wide audiences. While policy narratives are increasingly becoming the subject of policy research, no empirical research has examined whether interest groups' YouTube visual clips constitute policy narratives, with embedded narrative elements and strategies. To explore the intersection of policy narratives with new media, we use the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) to analyze YouTube videos posted by the interest group Buffalo Field Campaign. Our results indicate that the group's videos were moderately strong in narrativity and that gory images were the most powerful predictor for public attention (measured by a rank order of views per month). The implications of our methodology and results for the empirical study of YouTube and its role in public policy are discussed.