I have heard the term “net neutrality” for years, but I can’t say I really paid attention to it or even understood it.

But a guest posting by John S. Johnson on the site Hope for Film not only explained the term but offered up storytelling — and a free, downloadable communications guide — as a way to preserve it.

First, what it is and why it’s threatened:

… this principle of net neutrality that allows all sites, services and applications on the Internet to have equal access to consumers, and vice versa, is being fundamentally threatened. Today the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is looking to revise rules that have kept Internet Service Providers (ISPs) at bay for decades. These companies, like AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner, and Verizon, would love to become the gatekeepers of the Internet, reserving preferential bandwidth for those sites and services that make them the most money.

Johnson goes on to note that “service fees [could] force all but the super-rich from accessing and producing online content.” The answer, Johnson says, is to tell “the compelling story of how the loss of an open Internet will affect our daily lives” and “harness the power of entertainment and mass media to tell stories about key social issues, such as the fight for net neutrality, that will resonate with a broad audience and promote action.”

To that end, Johnson’s organization offers FTW! Net Neutrality For The Win: How Entertainment and the Science of Influence Can Save Your Internet, which “explains how we can use the untapped potential of narrative to increase support for net neutrality. Telling stories about how vital the open Internet is to our livelihoods is the key to getting people to take notice and take action.” You can download the free guide here.

Although the guide is very specific to the issue of net neutrality, its techniques can be adapted for other causes. In fact the technique, which Johnson’s research group the Harmony Institute calls “Entertainment-Education,” is explained in generic terms in the back of the guide, with examples of how it has been used for other issues.