{"id":341,"date":"2019-02-05T11:35:17","date_gmt":"2019-02-05T19:35:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/jhodson\/?p=341"},"modified":"2019-02-05T11:35:17","modified_gmt":"2019-02-05T19:35:17","slug":"the-importance-of-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/jhodson\/the-importance-of-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"The Importance of Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why is the entertainment industry one of the most robust industries even during a recession<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Why did Donald Trump experience such a strong rise in his path to the presidency<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Why do we identify with people who share the same national identity as us<\/a>, even in a large country where we may not share geography, living situation, or other demographic similarities?<\/p>\n

\"203d
“203d Speed Western Stories May-1945 Includes Rawhidin\\u2019 Tenderfoot by E. Hoffmann Price” by CthulhuWho1 (Will Hart) is licensed under CC BY 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit: https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/p>\n

The answer – or rather one answer that is part of a series of complex and varied interactions, lies in the power of compelling storytelling. In fact, some evolutionary scientists claim that it is not tools, nor language but the ability to invent stories or mythologies<\/a> that resulted in homo sapiens becoming the dominant species on the planet.<\/p>\n

“Make America Great Again” is a compelling story. It paints a vivid picture, and makes use of analogy and nostalgia as persuasive tools. Blockbuster movies rely on common tropes that are easily understood and processed by a wide variety of people. They create worlds that are dramatic and yet familiar, and which, like MAGA, arouse an emotion in the audience. Of course, nations are built on stories too. Most countries have values, emotional resonance and mythology as well as history. These are connected with cultural artifacts, practices, and even ways of speaking. History too, as recorded is usually narrative. The choice of what to include and what to leave out paints and picture, and cements specific ideologies and power relations.<\/p>\n

In this blog, I myself have argued on multiple occasions how stories help build community, how they can help us better understand complex ideas, and how they sometimes trick us into joining communities that may work against our better interests. Reflecting on the power of narrative communication, I think I would agree that storytelling is an important part of what makes us human. It is also an important tool that enables human cooperation at scale. If stories can unite a nation state, they can also unite international actors who may want to address a global problem like poverty or climate change.<\/p>\n

To organize people, stories must be easy to understand and\/or slightly familiar. They need to engage people at an emotional level. It helps if they can fit into already existing narratives or cultural artefacts, and they must be human centered. Raw scientific information is not a story, but if you show the way the science impacts human beings or animals, and you work to connect the science to values and assumptions people already hold, then you might get somewhere.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, some storytellers (politicians, big media industries, PR departments) have more resources to tell stories than others do. However, despite this, many communicators are still held back by old models based in the provision of corporate or “on brand” information and so fail to even take the time to uncover what their audiences value. This means that there are still opportunities for good stories to break through. And that’s good, because we need new stories now more than ever.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why is the entertainment industry one of the most robust industries even during a recession? Why did Donald Trump experience such a strong rise in his path to the presidency? Why do we identify with people who share the same national identity as us, even in a large country where we may not share geography, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":184,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87,62,91,78],"tags":[25,94,19,93],"class_list":["post-341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-information-design","category-public-relations","category-science-communication","category-social-change","tag-information-flows","tag-narrative","tag-social-media-and-society","tag-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/jhodson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/jhodson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/jhodson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/jhodson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/184"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/jhodson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/jhodson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":342,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/jhodson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions\/342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/jhodson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/jhodson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/jhodson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}