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Rethinking How We Tell Stories Together. From Franchise to Masyarakat by Satyagraha et al.

What if the stories that shape our lives weren’t written in boardrooms, but in classrooms, kitchens, and community halls?

Blockbusters and brands often dictate the stories audiences follow. They are slick, powerful, and everywhere. But when stories are controlled from the top, local voices are frequently left unheard.

In Indonesia, a group of researchers has been exploring this creative, alternative approach. Instead of one master script, young people co-create narratives through role-playing board games about climate survival, or TikTok skits and comics that reimagine earthquake preparedness in local dialects. These are stories that not only entertain but also help communities reflect, adapt, and act.

One example is GENERAKSI, a board game co-designed with youth. Players step into the roles of farmers, rangers, engineers, or mafias, negotiating resource dilemmas and facing consequences together. Another is Sahabat Gempa, where primary school children in Jakarta, Indonesia transformed disaster lessons into TikTok sketches, rap, and comics. Both projects show how learning deepens when participants create stories rather than only consume them.

The team describes this approach as Masyarakat logic. Drawing on the principles of gotong royong (working together) and musyawarah (deliberation), it frames storytelling as a dynamic and ongoing process. Instead of fixed scripts, stories evolve through collective authorship, emotional resonance, and reflection. The aim is not polished products, but the shared work of making meaning together.

This paper reflects on insights from these experiments. Storytelling can move beyond entertainment or branding to become a communal practice that prepares groups for challenges such as climate change and disasters. It also demonstrates how participatory design in education can counteract top-down, one-size-fits-all models.

Masyarakat logic is not about replacing the blockbuster. It highlights another way of telling stories—built from the ground up, through the voices and values of communities themselves.

The forever link for the full paper is as follows:

Satyagraha, A., Amri, A., Kiling, I. Y., Tebe, Y., & Muzaki, J. (2025). From Franchise to Masyarakat: Rethinking Transmedia Storytelling as a Community-Centred Design Framework. Action Research, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/14767503251389478