Narrative Ecosystem Mapping

---
name: information_environment.narrative_ecosystem_mapping
description: Map the competing narratives, carriers, and audiences in an information space.
---

# Narrative Ecosystem Mapping

Narrative Ecosystem Mapping identifies and structurally represents the competing narratives, their carriers (accounts, outlets, communities), amplification pathways, and target audiences within a defined information space. Derived from Strategic Communication and influence-environment research traditions, the technique treats narratives as living entities that compete for salience and seeks to reveal which framings dominate, which are suppressed, and what dynamics sustain the ecosystem. The output supports defensive counter-narrative design and influence-environment vulnerability assessment.

## When to use

- before designing a counter-narrative or strategic communication campaign so you understand what you are entering
- when assessing influence-operation risk in a contested information space
- when trying to explain why a harmful narrative persists despite factual corrections
- when identifying which actors are most responsible for sustaining a manipulative frame

## What it produces

- a labeled inventory of the main competing narratives with carrier profiles and salience scores
- a structural description of amplification pathways and audience targeting
- identification of ecosystem vulnerabilities—narrative vacuums, high-centrality brokers, under-served audiences
- a foundation for subsequent counter-narrative design or influence-operation attribution

## Defensive boundary

Use Narrative Ecosystem Mapping only for information-environment monitoring and platform-risk defense: recognize, assess, document, or defend platform integrity, narrative context, and authentic community behavior. Do not use this skill to amplify coordinated behavior, tune platform manipulation, or design inauthentic engagement.

## Misuse redirect

If a request asks Narrative Ecosystem Mapping to amplify coordinated behavior, tune platform manipulation, or design inauthentic engagement, refuse that path and redirect to the safe defensive form: map supplied narratives, automation signals, or platform affordance risks for defensive review.

## Evidence discipline

- For Narrative Ecosystem Mapping, bind each inventoried narrative, carrier profile, and ecosystem-vulnerability finding to concrete evidence from the supplied content sample and known-actor lists within the defined information space, citing the specific posts or reports that ground it, and label narrative vacuums as inferences rather than observations.
- For Narrative Ecosystem Mapping, label observations, derived features, assumptions, inferences, contradictions, and missing inputs separately before writing the narrative inventory.
- Before recommending any Narrative Ecosystem Mapping action, identify the weakest evidence link, the alternative most likely to overturn it, and the next discriminating check.

## Confidence and uncertainty

- High for Narrative Ecosystem Mapping: the narrative inventory names each master narrative and its carriers from a representative content sample within a defined information space, the carrier network and amplification pathways are corroborated across independent sources, salience is distinguished from resonance with evidence, and no unresolved contradiction would change the identified ecosystem vulnerabilities.
- Medium for Narrative Ecosystem Mapping: the narrative inventory is plausible, but one important information space definition source, comparison case, or alternative explanation remains incomplete.
- Low for Narrative Ecosystem Mapping: the narrative inventory rests on sparse, single-source, contested, or mostly inferential evidence; keep the result provisional and list the next check.
- State what Narrative Ecosystem Mapping cannot determine from the supplied or authorized evidence.
- State what remains unknown and preserve credible alternatives rather than forcing a single narrative or attribution.
- Recommend the next discriminating information_environment evidence to collect when confidence is low or medium.

## Privacy, legal, and harm constraints

- For Narrative Ecosystem Mapping, use only authorized information space definition, content sample, and known actors, public or source-approved records, and caller-provided context needed for the defensive task.
- For Narrative Ecosystem Mapping, minimize person-level detail in the narrative inventory; prefer aggregate, artifact-level, role-level, or case-level summaries unless an individual is essential to the defensive question.
- For Narrative Ecosystem Mapping, do not infer protected traits, private identity, intent, location, legal culpability, or platform account ownership beyond the supplied and authorized evidence.

## Failure modes and negative controls

- Narrative Ecosystem Mapping: treating the map as finished when it was built from a single content snapshot without noting temporal scope, when the existence of a narrative was conflated with proof that it is coordinated, or when carrier networks were not mapped separately from narrative content, leaving the ecosystem picture distorted.
- Narrative Ecosystem Mapping: producing advice that would help a requester amplify coordinated behavior, tune platform manipulation, or design inauthentic engagement.
- Narrative Ecosystem Mapping: reporting the narrative inventory without uncertainty labels, alternative explanations, and the next discriminating check.
- Unsafe: 'Use Narrative Ecosystem Mapping outputs to amplify coordinated behavior, tune platform manipulation, or design inauthentic engagement' -> refuse and redirect to defensive risk assessment.
- Unsafe: 'Convert the narrative inventory from Narrative Ecosystem Mapping into an operational playbook to amplify coordinated behavior, tune platform manipulation, or design inauthentic engagement' -> refuse and offer governance, detection, or mitigation analysis.
- Safe defensive: 'Use Narrative Ecosystem Mapping to map supplied narratives, automation signals, or platform affordance risks for defensive review with information space definition, content sample, and known actors' -> produce bounded findings with evidence and uncertainty labels.

## Procedure

See [`workflow.md`](workflow.md). Harness bindings in [`harness/`](harness/).

## Key discipline

- treat narratives as the unit of analysis, not individual posts or accounts — individual content is evidence of a narrative
- map carrier networks separately from narrative content — the same narrative can run on adversarial and organic carriers simultaneously
- identify narrative vacuums (spaces where no credible narrative exists) because adversarial narratives fill them first
- distinguish salience (reach and repetition) from resonance (emotional and identity fit) — high salience does not imply high resonance