Comments on: Do stories really matter? http://brendanwatson.net/blog/?p=115 Multimedia journalist, mass communication scholar, student and ecologist. Wed, 26 Nov 2008 04:17:22 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Brendan Watson http://brendanwatson.net/blog/?p=115&cpage=1#comment-46 Brendan Watson Wed, 26 Nov 2008 04:17:22 +0000 http://brendanwatson.net/blog/?p=115#comment-46 Matt, I agree. I don't believe journalists should provide raw data (or at least only raw data), but rather should construct a narrative around it. Your right that narratives aren't just for show but play a potentially important role in cognition. What I am responding to is a traditional conception of narratives. I use the word story to refer to the traditional one-off narrative that is most frequent in journalism. I think we should conceptualize these one off stories as potential data points in our overall narratives of the type you describe. And I couldn't agree more that these narratives can be structured in many different ways. I am currently studying relevance theory and how it suggests we might structure future journalism narratives. There's some rich stuff there. But anyway, to agree with you in different language: tell more narratives! (Fewer stories). Matt, I agree. I don’t believe journalists should provide raw data (or at least only raw data), but rather should construct a narrative around it. Your right that narratives aren’t just for show but play a potentially important role in cognition. What I am responding to is a traditional conception of narratives. I use the word story to refer to the traditional one-off narrative that is most frequent in journalism. I think we should conceptualize these one off stories as potential data points in our overall narratives of the type you describe. And I couldn’t agree more that these narratives can be structured in many different ways. I am currently studying relevance theory and how it suggests we might structure future journalism narratives. There’s some rich stuff there.

But anyway, to agree with you in different language: tell more narratives! (Fewer stories).

]]> By: Matt http://brendanwatson.net/blog/?p=115&cpage=1#comment-45 Matt Wed, 26 Nov 2008 03:46:18 +0000 http://brendanwatson.net/blog/?p=115#comment-45 Brendan, I'm <a href="http://www.newsless.org/2008/11/best-election-coverage-evar/" rel="nofollow">right there with you</a> on most of this. <a href="http://www.newsless.org/2008/09/it-all-bubbles-up/" rel="nofollow">And a half</a>. But my takeaway isn't that stories aren't important, but that larger stories are *more* important. What I've been whining about <a href="http://www.newsless.org/2008/09/journalists-bail-yourselves-out/" rel="nofollow">with the financial crisis</a>, for example, is our focus on reporting the latest developments, or on reporting the details of some specific aspect of the crisis, without anyone trying to <a href="http://www.themoneymeltdown.com" rel="nofollow">draw out a larger narrative</a> from the whole thing. I think storytelling, be it visual, texual, or otherwise, is actually a useful technique for battling information overload. A narrative structure is one of the most intuitive methods of organization. So my takeaway is, don't just tell <strong>more</strong> stories. Tell <strong>larger</a> stories. Aggregate, curate, filter, select, edit, shape. Brendan, I’m right there with you on most of this. And a half.

But my takeaway isn’t that stories aren’t important, but that larger stories are *more* important. What I’ve been whining about with the financial crisis, for example, is our focus on reporting the latest developments, or on reporting the details of some specific aspect of the crisis, without anyone trying to draw out a larger narrative from the whole thing.

I think storytelling, be it visual, texual, or otherwise, is actually a useful technique for battling information overload. A narrative structure is one of the most intuitive methods of organization. So my takeaway is, don’t just tell more stories. Tell larger stories. Aggregate, curate, filter, select, edit, shape.

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