This week I taught the semester's final session of "Business & Professional Speaking" in my first semester at TCU. The final days of the fall are now up to my students: they're in the midst of their final presentations, and I'm sure are already studying hard for their final next week... But I wanted to share the way I wrapped up my part of the semester, because I think we all resonate with it.Several times throughout the semester, our class has mentioned the importance of stories, in public speaking settings. We've made claims that stories back up main points; they add personal experience to statistics and facts; they paint a picture for your audience; they engage listeners (or readers); they connect; they draw people in. In fact, statistically, personal experience stories are the most meaningful, persuasive way to prove your point. Bottom line, humans like stories. So I wanted to wrap up the semester by asking "why is that?"
The Use of Story in Communication
From the earliest days of human communication, mankind has communicated through story. In pre-literate societies, oral communication was all humans had: we learned through observing, imitating, and retelling. Shared experiences and stories were the means of packaging information. So for generations - and in many cultures, for centuries - story was the primary (if not the only) means of communication. Even during the following short period of cave drawings, pictograms, and pictographs, one drawing scrawled on a rock quickly became a series of drawings, showing a progression in time, movement, or action. These pictures told stories.
As humans became literate, and as writing became more prevalent, communication changed. As print communication increased, communication moved from stories and pictures to words and ideas. Learning shifted from observing, imitating and retelling, to reading, individual studying, and analyzing. Facts, lectures, and print became the means of packaging information, and learning became more linear, based on logic and fact. This is where the west has been since the Enlightenment.
But in a twist of irony, as digital communication continues to become the newest widespread communication method, is a return to story. We're now on the cusp of a post-literate society. That doesn't mean we can't read; it just means we choose not to! Hearing, seeing, interacting, and retelling are rising again as the methods of learning - in an oversimplified example of this, picture the "retweet," or email forwards, or viral videos. Shared experiences, images, and stories are the renewed means of packaging information. Even major media outlets are turning their digital expressions into video, shortening or deleting text content, and replacing it with visual and audio stories.
Seeing the Return to Story
Here are just a few of many examples of this post-literate shift: over the past couple years CNN.com's homepage has added 3-4 bullet points at the top of each of their written articles, and embedding video links as often as they could, decreasing the need for reading the entire article. Beginning in October of this year, they even moved their headlines (which linked to text-based stories) down their page, and now features links to numerous video stories at the top of their page. YouTube is one of the most popular sites on the internet. According to a letter posted this week by facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, "more than 350 million people around the world are using Facebook to share their lives online" (italics mine). There are millions of blogs. Many universities are encouraging professors to move away from lecture as the primary means of teaching, instead focusing on interaction (shared experience) and practical examples (stories). Political candidates share not only facts and stats about a situation, but also names and experiences. And I could go on...
It's not hard to see, as a culture and society, we love story. We love heroes. We love personal experiences. We love having pictures painted for us. We're experience a shift in communication - a return to story. Why might this trend be occurring? Because as much as humans are logical, and have become accustomed to learning by logic, analysis, and literate-style thinking, research shows that as we connect best with story.
[Tomorrow - Part 2: Why do we connect with story?]
1 comments:
Well written intro to the shift in communication, Ben, and some good observations.
You are probably familiar with the "shifts in orality" research done by Otto, McLuhan, and Postman. These shifts, from oral to written to digital communication are largely a function of technology, not story. Story remains part of culture because it is human to narrate. We are historical beings. I think these shifts are both helpful and harmful.
Helpful in that the technology allows for new ways to communicate the gospel, to express human creativity, and strengthen society. Harmful in that, very often, "the medium is the message" not the message itself (McLuhan). The deleterious effects of these shifts can be seen in loss of memory, literacy, and relationality. If we are not careful, we will begin to think and relate in bytes, 140 character strings, and lose the discipline of sustained logical reflection and joyful, relational story-telling. We will show up with little to talk to others about, because we have already extracted the information WE WANT via their blog, website, and twitter.
Just a few thoughts. Yes, story is human but the medium through which story is told is not.
Post a Comment