Department of Future Listening: Narrative Risk Radar (UK pilot)

Project summary

Fingerprint Content is building the Department of Future Listening (DFL): a lightweight culture engine that pairs writers’ room craft with narrative-risk sensing to help society stay oriented under pressure.

We are responding to a specific, escalating problem surfaced through commissioned scoping work for Wellcome Trust: polarising narrative operations and mythic capture are outpacing our cultural immune system—driving denialism, scapegoating and institutional distrust across climate, health and AI.

With this grant we will run a focused UK pilot to create a Narrative Risk Radar and publish a set of high-utility casebooks + tools that commissioners, writers and funders can use immediately—then test the method inside live development, under real constraints (time, talent, broadcast realities).
What it is

DFL is a creative + analytical studio function that treats story as public infrastructure. We help storytellers and partners answer:

What 'myths' are shaping behaviour right now?
Where are narratives being manipulated or captured?
What kinds of stories can restore agency, coherence, and care—without propaganda?
What story-frames are currently driving behaviour and belief?
Where are narratives being engineered, funded or amplified to polarise and immobilise?
What kinds of stories can restore agency and complexity—without propaganda or “issue TV”?
Why now
The UK is living through overlapping pressures (cost of living, climate impacts, health inequalities, online radicalisation, AI disruption). In these conditions, simple, emotionally-charged stories win: scapegoats, inevitability, “strongman solutions,” and “nothing can be done.”
Policy cannot meet this alone. Narratives move faster than institutions.
If we don’t build a practical method for cultural intervention, mythic capture continues to scale—hardening polarisation and weakening the public’s capacity to act together on climate and health.
What we’ll make in this pilot
1) Narrative Risk Radar (UK)
A lightweight, repeatable method to scan and map high-risk narrative patterns across climate/health + AI + migration + net-zero backlash, and identify the “pressure points” where story choices can reduce harm and increase resilience.
2) 3–4 Casebooks (10–15 pages each)
Short, usable briefs translating risk signals into craft decisions:
- characters + story engines that travel
- frames/tropes that escalate harm (and what to do instead)
- “red-lines” + ethical watch-outs
- story opportunities that increase agency without preaching
3) The Pre-Flight Check (1–2 pages)
A simple writers’ room tool used before greenlight:
What are we accidentally reinforcing? Where are we vulnerable to capture? What needs rewriting now?
4) Two trusted-room salons
Small, high-trust convenings with writers, editors, commissioners and domain experts to pressure-test outputs fast.
5) Protocol of Care (practical, not fluffy)
A one-page working method for representation, consent, lived experience and uncertainty in high-stakes stories—designed to be used in development rooms.
What success looks like
- Adoption: writers/commissioners actively use the Pre-Flight Check and casebooks in development decisions.
- Repeatability: the Radar becomes a standing method we can run quarterly (not a one-off report).
- Transferability: outputs are usable in the UK and adaptable through partners in the USA, Germany, India and Brazil without becoming extractive.
- Proof of value: we can point to concrete “before/after” creative choices made because of the work.
We’re not trying to win arguments. We’re trying to change what kinds of stories are available to people under pressure.

What are this project's goals? How will you achieve them?

Goals (6–8 week pilot)

Build + validate the Narrative Risk Radar (v1).
Create a repeatable scanning + pattern-mapping method (climate/health + AI + migration + net-zero backlash) and validate it with an advisory bench so it’s credible to funders/policy-adjacent stakeholders and usable at writers’ room speed.
Publish practical tools that change decisions.
Deliver 3–4 casebooks (10–15 pages each) plus a 1–2 page “Pre-Flight Check” for commissioners/writers: red flags, rewrites, story opportunities, ethical watch-outs—designed for use in development meetings, not as comms guidance.
Pressure-test inside live development (proof, not theory).
Run the method against at least one active project in development and document concrete “before/after” shifts (character choices, story engine, antagonists, emotional hooks, world rules) so the value is demonstrable under real constraints.
Build adoption pathways, not just outputs.
Host two trusted-room salons (writers/editors/commissioner-facing advisors + domain experts) and secure 2–3 named “early adopters” (companies or commissioners/writers’ room leads) who commit to trialling the Pre-Flight Check in their pipeline.
Deliver a scale plan + funding model.
Produce a clear Phase 2 plan: who it serves, what the recurring outputs are (quarterly radar cycles / casebooks), how it plugs into industry workflows, and a sustainable funding model (studio + field) that avoids NGO-ism and extractive partnerships.

How we’ll do it

Week 1: Set the scope + risk clusters
Define 3–4 priority narrative-risk clusters (e.g., net-zero backlash, migration scapegoating, “AI will save us / AI will doom us”, health mistrust) and the “signals” we’ll track.

Weeks 1–2: Signal scan + short expert interviews
Rapid desk scan across media/social/political discourse + 8–12 targeted interviews (writers/commissioners + online harms/AI governance + climate/health + representation/more-than-human ethics). Capture what’s spreading, why it sticks, and where stories get captured

Weeks 2–3: Pattern-mapping + pressure points
Map tropes, frames, emotional hooks, and amplification/funding dynamics—then translate into “pressure points” for craft: character, villain/victim structures, stakes, humour, setting, and resolution logic.

Weeks 3–6: Make the tools (built for the room)
Draft 3–4 casebooks + a 1–2 page Pre-Flight Check. Iterate fast with commissioner-facing advisors and writers.

Weeks 4–7: Live development test (proof, not theory)
Run the method inside at least one active development process and document concrete “before/after” creative decisions.

Weeks 5–8: Two trusted-room salons + adoption
Host 2 small salons to test usability, recruit 2–3 early adopters, and refine outputs based on real workflow feedback.

Week 8: Publish v1 + next-phase plan
Publish the casebooks/toolkit, document learnings, and deliver a Phase 2 scale plan (repeatable radar cycles, distribution, funding model).

How will this funding be used?

Core team time (design + delivery + editing)
Research support (paid assistant / analyst)
Stipends for contributors (underrepresented writers / advisors)
Workshops / convenings costs (space, facilitation, accessibility)
Design + production of casebooks (so they’re genuinely usable)
Travel (UK) where it materially improves outputs (e.g., London + one regional hub)

Who is on your team? What's your track record on similar projects?

Jess Hines (Founder/MD, Fingerprint Content) — 20+ years producing film/TV and building partnerships across UK/US/India; long-standing work with Indian and diaspora creatives; Campaigns Director at Purpose Climate Labs, focuses on climate + culture + political risk in mainstream storytelling.
Claire Whalley (EP / strategic development) — experienced commissioner-facing creative partner and operator.

Radha RH — Researcher, writer and designer with an MA (Distinction) in Non-fiction Creative Writing (UEA) and a background in urban research and public art. Experienced in end-to-end publishing and synthesis: commissioning contributors, editing, design/production, and translating dense reports/data into accessible briefs and newsletters.
Associate collaborators/advisors: researchers and practitioners across climate/health narratives, online harms / AI governance, and more-than-human rights (incl. academic connections).

Track record: Fingerprint Content has delivered produced work (feature + series), raised investment, and recently delivered a substantial India cultural mapping project for a major health funder—turning complex ecosystems into usable strategy and story opportunity frameworks.

What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails?

Likely causes

We translate risk into theory, not craft. The work becomes insight-rich but not usable at the speed commissioners’ rooms operate.
Scope creep. We try to map “everything” and dilute the pilot’s usefulness.
Churn + backlash. The public/media cycle accelerates (net zero backlash, migration scapegoating, AI panic), making partners more cautious and less willing to test anything new.
Wrong contributors at the wrong moment. If we can’t secure the right blend of writerly talent + subject expertise quickly, the outputs won’t have authority or traction.

Likely outcomes

A missed opportunity: we produce good thinking but don’t shift decisions in writers’ rooms or commissioning conversations.
The radar doesn’t become a repeatable “pre-flight check,” and narrative risk continues to compound unchecked—polarisation deepens, trust erodes, and harmful simplifications outcompete complexity.
Outputs remain niche: casebooks circulate within our network but don’t travel into mainstream development pipelines where they matter.

Mitigation

Design for decisions, not agreement. Every output must end in clear creative choices: what to do, what to avoid, what to test next.
Hard constraints: limit the pilot to a small number of narrative risk clusters and deliverables; publish in short, usable formats.
Co-design with end users early: commissioners/writers in the loop from week one; test drafts inside live development, not in theory.
Ship v1 fast, iterate publicly and privately: release a first set of casebooks quickly, then refine based on real uptake.
Small trusted rooms: convene contributors where nuance is possible and defensiveness is low—then translate into materials that can scale.

The cost of failure here isn’t reputational—it’s that preventable narrative harms continue to scale faster than our cultural immune system.

How much money have you raised in the last 12 months, and from where?

In the last 12 months, Fingerprint Content has raised funding across three streams:

Project development / production finance tied to film & TV projects in active development and sales.
Philanthropic / contract research funding, including a commissioned India cultural mapping project for a major health foundation (Wellcome Trust), which directly informed the need for this work.
Private bridge / operational support to keep the company delivering across multiple workstreams.

This project (DFL) is a new venture emerging from that scoping work—a structured response to the narrative-risk crisis we surfaced while mapping how climate/health stories move (and are manipulated) through culture.