Brough Johnson On Audience Centric Storytelling Fostering Belonging And Authentic Representation

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Brough Johnson is the co-founder and co-CEO of Narrative Muse, a company dedicated to fostering representation and belonging in entertainment.

They achieve this through tailored recommendations of books, movies, and TV shows, alongside audience analytics and insights. Their forward-looking approach to data is a pathway to understanding the preferences of both underserved and mainstream audiences.

As the editor of the Emmy award-winning series Rūrangi, Brough is passionate about the impact stories have on culture and society. She is also deeply committed to supporting and mentoring others working in the impact space.

Brough discusses the importance of storytelling to help illuminate the needs of underrepresented communities, and how social entrepreneurs can effectively implement data and deep technology to enhance and tailor their solutions.

Highlights from the interview (listen to the podcast for full details)

[Indio Myles] - To start off, can you please share a bit about your background and what led to your work in social entrepreneurship?

[Brough Johnson] - I’ve worked in film and television with the highlight being working on Rūrangi, a TV series out of Aotearoa (New Zealand). It's special and I’m giving it a plug because if you haven't seen Rūrangi, you absolutely should.

It’s a beautiful story that takes place in Taranaki, on the Northern Island of Aotearoa. Rūrangi is about a trans man who has transitioned away from home, and upon returning the story unfolds. It's a beautiful story.

In my background of working in film and television, I was an editor for over 10 years. During that time, I witnessed the kinds of stories we were putting into the world, and what we weren’t putting into the world. The stories that we aren't putting into the world is an important gap.

Admittedly, quite a bit of time has passed since I was a full-time editor, because I've been working on and within Narrative Muse for a few years now. We launched officially in 2020, but before an official launch (and really when you're creating anything), it takes time to get some stuff off the ground.

I had been working inside Narrative Muse for a few years prior to 2020. But while working inside of film and TV, it was clear to me we have a real gap between the kinds of stories we're showing on screen and humanity, who we all are, and how we show up on the planet. There's a real lack of representation on screen.

After realising that's something which matters to me, I wanted to do something about that. Teresa Bass (co-founder of Narrative Muse) and I agreed that we should also be thinking about representation in publishing, simply because the screen and publishing industry are so similar in that there is a need for audiences to see, read and watch themselves in stories.

The way in which we engage with stories through our books is also like how we engage with stories in film and TV. It was important for us to merge the two. While working as an editor for film and TV, I've always been deeply invested in social impact, and it felt like with time I would eventually move into that space.

It hadn't occurred to me that I would merge media and entertainment with social impact, but I’m excited that I've been able to do that because I think it's deeply important. A lot of other people think it’s important, and that's how and why we're still here.

Alongside of working in Narrative Muse I've also worked with Ally Skills New Zealand, where we are helping people to learn how to become better allies. I've also been deep inside the community called Walk Together. If you haven't heard of Walk Together yet, I highly recommend people do some research.

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Based in Australia, Walk Together is also here in Aotearoa. It's run by two amazing people: Arama Mataira in Aotearoa and Dave Goddard in Australia. They do incredible social impact work in both spaces, and they also help other organisations do great work.

Ultimately, I always felt like there was a place for me in social entrepreneurship, but I just didn't know it for sure until I was in it. Finding my way through media was the way for me to arrive there.

As co-founder and co-CEO of Narrative Muse, can you please share more about the organisation’s mission and the impact it's trying to create?

You mentioned earlier what our vision is, which is to create representation and belonging in entertainment. There are so many ways you can work on representation and belonging, representation being the obvious word meaning seeing yourself reflected.

The belonging part for us means practitioners and creators have a place inside of the entertainment industry, especially along the lines of those who are underrepresented. Our tech for good aspect formed over time. This was not an immediate development, originally, we started as a review website.

We realised quickly that was not enough; if we wanted people to be able to find stories that reflected who they are and their identity, then we needed to do something more. We ended up creating a recommendation engine anyone can use; you just go to narrativemuse.com.

Through that engine we help people find recommendations for books, movies, and TV shows that reflect their taste, identity, or the things that interest them the most. We provide tailored recommendations, and when we launched this component of Narrative Muse the thing which mattered to us most was that audiences were having their needs met.

This is coming at entertainment from quite a different perspective. Often, entertainment is developed from a creative vision, so creatives have an idea which they put into the world and then they look for audiences. This is an important part of the process; creativity is everything inside of the screen and publishing industry.

We also wanted to look at it from the audience’s perspective. What about all those folks who are interested in particular stories, people who want to read and watch more specific things? Are they getting their needs met?

That's why we started this recommendation engine. We also quickly learned if there are not enough stories to share or recommend then there's only so much we can do, so that was how we unintentionally found ourselves creating an insights platform.

Our platform provides creative insights bridging the gap between audience preferences and creative decision making. If there are limited financial resources, this platform helps commissioners, buyers and publishers to decide what books, films, or TV shows to move ahead with.

It can also help authors or screen producers present a solid case their story is needed in the world, by showing analytics and highlighting the audiences who are interested in stories like theirs.

We can help with matchmaking between audiences and completed films and TV shows so people can find stuff when it gets made. We are doing that through marketing and various other methods of matchmaking.

All of this is incredibly important from a social impact perspective, even if it doesn't sound like it. If we are making stories that have a clear audience and their needs are not being met (particularly for marginalised and underserved communities), it’s important that those folks can find the stories that reflect them.

We also want to help creatives advocate for their stories to show that there is a market for it, and this is more important than ever because there are less resources for storytelling than there ever have been.

Everything's under pressure right now, and here in Aotearoa we are deeply under pressure because there's less government funding than there ever has been for storytelling. The commercial environment has always been difficult in Aotearoa because it's a small one. It's a small market and there are not a lot of people who can invest in the creation of books, movies, and TV shows.

Around the world, including in Australia, the United States, Canada and the UK, there's a significant crunch right now, particularly in screen. There's not as much funding and resources to make film and TV shows as there used to be. It’s a challenging environment right now.

As far as publishing goes, there have never been more books. In some ways that makes it difficult for publishers to reach their readers and to make a profit. Because we are talking about social entrepreneurship, that entrepreneurship and commercial aspect is still important.

If we're going to be talking in business terms, what we're doing and what we're producing must be solving or fulfilling a need. For us, analytics is one of the ways we can help underserved audiences specifically.

This is how we ended up becoming a tech company, we never originally intended to be a tech company. Our intention was to help and support underserved audiences, and then here we are, a tech company.

How does elevating the voices of underrepresented storytellers lead to stronger outcomes for diverse communities

The thing is we all love to see ourselves represented. Being able to see ourselves in what we read, and watch helps affirm we matter. If we have communities that aren't readily on screen or pages, we're not affirming that these communities’ matter and are important to our societies and cultures.

Culture is a shifting thing that never stays in the same place. It's important that we are expressing and telling stories about changes in culture and looking at what matters most to different communities.

Just because we have one movie about a community group that was made 20 years ago, that's not enough. We need to have stories talking about different community groups over time, and they need to be updated over time. We also need fresh stories because we need to know what matters today.

It can be quite common for certain community groups to find that they ‘got’ their story. People will say, “but you've got that story.” It's not enough, it’s important we are continually updating and showing where different groups are at today.

It's something that is said quite a lot, you can't be what you don't see. As for data behind this, there hasn't been a lot of research specific to the outcomes, but the Geena Davis Institute in the United States did an interesting study which uncovered something they refer to as the “Scully Effect”.

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This is going to be an old reference, so bear with me. Once upon a time, there was a television show called The X-Files, and The X-Files was one of the first sci-fi shows to have a leading character (Agent Scully) that was a woman. At the time, it was rare to see women represented as scientists.

When the institute did some research into the effect of Agent Scully, they found that 63% of women familiar with this character had more confidence in doing training in STEM, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

Prior to this, there weren't a lot of women who were engaging in STEM but post The X- Files there were significantly more. As it stands today, there has been so much more representation of women but we could do with more gender diversity. We could do with more trans and non-binary representation.

However, if we're talking about women, because there's been more representation of women in these career fields, there's been a significant shift in the education system. There are far more women engaging in STEM than ever before, and it's a direct result of people, women in particular, seeing themselves on screen.

That's just one example, and it's so meaningful to our future and where we're going as people (no matter how we identify) if we can see that we matter in society and culture.

Why are data and technology powerful tools for allowing organizations or social entrepreneurs to deepen their impact?

The key piece to this question is that if you don't have data, then you have nothing to measure against. If you don't know where you're starting, you don't know how things can be improved or made better. If you don't know where you are, it’s difficult to create a strategy that will have long lasting outcomes.

Data is important, and technology is a powerful tool in that it can help you reach more people. In theory, you can have a greater impact if you are using technology. I say in theory because sometimes it's best to do things at a local community level and to not attempt to touch all people at once, in which case technology may not be the solution.

Sometimes solutions can be technologically based. When it comes to data and measurement for social impact outcomes, at Narrative Muse we specifically look at how we can support creatives to bridge the gap between audience preferences and creative decisions.

As small examples, we've seen our data show that underrepresented communities tend to engage with the content of other underrepresented communities. Oftentimes we find if there is a story about a marginalised community, we also find that other underrepresented communities tend to show up for those stories as much as the community themselves.

What this tells us is there is a much larger audience for these so called ‘niche’ stories. When you are of an experience that is not mainstream, it's common and familiar for us to identify with other non-mainstream experiences of marginalisation.

We're able to see with our data that whatever group is represented by a story (and in this case I'm talking about people who experience disability), that doesn't necessarily mean that's the only group who is going to watch that story.,

Why this is so important is because it's easy for folks to say a story is so niche that resources and financing shouldn’t go into that story because only a tiny population is going to watch or have an interest in it.

That's not true, the truth is that by expressing stories about a particular community, the size of the audience is so much bigger than you would expect. We're able to look at exactly who those groups are, and that's so important because film and TV is led by commercial outcomes because they're very expensive things to make.

We need to be able to see that the money can be made back, and that's true in a lot of commercial environments. In Aotearoa that's not entirely true. In Aotearoa, a lot of outcomes that are necessary here are cultural. Commercial outcomes are important as well, but cultural outcomes are often more important due to public funding.

What's important in our commercial environment is that we can also show the cultural outcomes are huge because the potential audiences are so big. Another thing we can see from the data is what community groups tend to enjoy watching or reading.

Oftentimes we like to make assumptions about people, and we like to put them into boxes and assume what they enjoy. The problem with people putting people into boxes is we're making assumptions about what people want, and by doing that, it means we're not actually providing for how people want to see themselves or the ways they want to show up in their stories.

An example of that is with what we see in Pacific communities. These groups often enjoy light-hearted and fun stuff. The reason why this is so important is because (and the same is true for Māori audiences in Aotearoa) we tend to tell dark stories about indigenous communities.

Oftentimes we're doing this because we believe we should be talking about historical atrocities, or maybe we're just putting people into boxes about the lives they're living when they're not.

We have data to show that our indigenous communities desperately want to see joyous, happy, loving stories about themselves. This is important for social impact, because if we're able to see stories that reflect what interests us and the things we care about, and in this case, indigenous communities want to see joy.

That's important because not only will you get more people watching, viewing, and paying for the thing you're making, but you'll also generate the social outcomes by showing indigenous communities living joyful, happy lifestyles.

What advice would you give to an aspiring changemaker hoping to make a difference by starting a business for good?

The thing that matters most is start within your community. Whatever your community is, it's what you know best. It's the thing you're most connected to, and if you start with your own community, then you'll have a strong understanding of its needs and biggest challenges.

When we're talking about a business for good, we can relate a lot of regular business concepts of any kind to it. Business in general requires you to be solving a problem people have a willingness to pay for. Sometimes we must be careful about assuming people are going to pay for a social outcome, because they might not be willing to.

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Businesses for good aren't always looking for social outcomes, of course outcomes can be environmental or for a community. If you know your community and its problems or biggest challenges, start there and then look for solutions.

If there isn't a willingness to pay for a solution, you might be looking at creating a nonprofit. You might be looking at creating community groups or finding other answers to your problem. The truth is that businesses for good aren't always able to completely satisfy a community’s need.

Sometimes that's just not the best solution for things, and so whenever I work with different folks (because I love being a mentor for entrepreneurs to help grow their ideas), I will often ask if there is a way to turn their idea into something that generates revenue?

If there isn’t, no problem. That's fine, but what does that mean then? What does that mean for the impact you want to have? Let's look at it differently because business for good may not be the solution.

Do you have a willingness to shift and change your personal vision? Or is your organisation's vision focused on commercial outcomes? I have a lot of conversations with social entrepreneurs, and when I use the word entrepreneur it doesn't mean these are all people engaged in commercial businesses.

Sometimes they're involved in not for profits, and it's common in not-for-profit leadership or grant givers to say, “now can you just go make some money?” These folks are saying it just doesn't work for our communities; it doesn't work for the outcomes we're seeking.

Sometimes we just must be creative. It depends on what matters and what we are trying to achieve, but if what we're trying to achieve is impact, it may not be through commercial outcomes.

What inspiring projects or initiatives have you come across creating a positive change?

I'm going to give examples local to this part of the world, apologies I'm not giving an Australian example! One is called ehoa founded by Michele Wilson, and Michele is a Māori wāhine who has created a product helping women connect with the maramataka, which is the lunar cycle and women's monthly cycle also.

It's a special product and space Michele has stepped into because it's enriching with the maramataka being part of the process and lunar cycles. As far as the Māori maramataka, it is so much more than just a lunar cycle. I encourage you to go look into that, I could talk about maramataka for quite some time.

Another example is Storyo created by Elina Ashimbayeva. While Elina is not super active with Storyo at just this minute, the thing I love about Storyo is you can go and find some incredible sex and health documentaries she's created talking about sex and sexual health in a way I have never seen done before. She’s doing great work in that space.

There’s another group called Fibre Fale by Julia Arnott-Neenee and Eteroa Lafaele. Fibre Fale does this incredible work to help Pacific leaders find their place in technology, because Pacific folks have been left out of the conversation and upskilling around technological leadership. Fibre Fale is doing amazing work with mentorship and upskilling.

Another initiative (although calling it an initiative isn't quite the correct word) I want to talk about Huia Publishers. Huia Publishers are a publisher here in Aotearoa focusing entirely on Māori books. They publish tamariki (another word for children or youth) non-fiction and fiction.

Huia Publishers is run by Eboni Waitere, and I just want to bring it up because they are doing amazing work. They are out in the world, they know their readers, and they know their community. They bring their community in to work with them all the time.

I’m inspired by the work Eboni and her entire team does. I wanted to plug Huia because they sell a whole bunch of their work and books from their own website. A lot of their books are also available in stores, but I suggest you check out Huia online and go see what they have to offer.

To finish off, what books or resources would you recommend to our audience?

Some of these books aren't local, but they're helping me a lot now. One is called Hospicing Modernity, and it's written by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira. It's an incredible book talking about our current social systems, where they're at, and what we need to be thinking about moving into the future.

The modern world as it is today is failing us, and we need to hospice it to begin a new future. If you're interested in thinking about moving into new futures, it is a fantastic book to help you think about how you can unpack your connection to the structures as they are today and think about new structures.

The next book I’ll recommend is called Emergent Strategy by Adrienne Maree Brown. This book speaks to a lot of the same concepts as Hospicing Modernity, it just comes from Adrienne’s lens. I also can't recommend it enough.

Another book I will recommend was written a mate of mine, but it's just so powerful. The Body is Not An Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor does a lot of work thinking about the bodies we're in and how these bodies are caught up in systems that don't work for us or each other. The title of The Body is Not An Apology gives away what it's all about, but it’s also thinking about systems thinking and I’m interested in big systems.

The last book I want to mention is a book called Wawata by Dr. Hanimoa Elder, and the reason I want to mention it is because it ties in nicely to ehoa and maramataka. If you want to learn more about the Māori maramataka, this book is my recommendation for you.