I watched the John Oliver show about the renewal of the Patriot Act upcoming in June.  His central argument is that the American people don’t care about NSA mass surveillance programmes as it’s too complicated.

He goes to Moscow and interviews Ed Snowden, and you can watch Snowden struggle to understand how to frame his story.  Then John Oliver reframes the massive complexity of NSA surveillance  around, errrr…Dick Pics sent online.

He shows Snowden interviews with people in Times Square before and after the reframing, and the results are absolutely clear when it comes to the formation of great narrative.

The full clip is 30min but you need to watch it in it’s entirety to see the beauty of the formation of the story.  Before the reframing people aren’t particularly worried about the powers of the NSA.  After the reframing they are passionately against it.

It’s a virtual masterclass in how to reframe complexity in such a way that it can trigger a narrative to be re-told.  It’s also an extremely topical and relevant story in itself.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Government Surveillance (HBO) – YouTube.