The future of narrative

We live in an age of ever-expanding micro-media. These are the sound bites that update us on all news public and personal. They come in the form of banner headlines, text and instant messages, PowerPoints, talk shows, blogging, social network websites, and micro-blogging. They present bits of information without narrative richness.

Micro-media are not new. People in the oldest archived cultures conveyed instant information through dress, jewelry, art, and body piercing and markings.

There is an emerging concern that the proliferation of micro-media is training our brains toward an intolerance of more narratively robust media that demand more sustained attention. We fear that the txt generations will lose their capacity for narrative aesthetic and abandon complex levels of thinking. We resist the potential for micro-media to create a nation of extended dialogue-disabled introverts who lack enough attention span for an enduring real-time conversation.

There is an equal concern that because micro-media presents fragmented bits of information, they reinforce polarized stereotypes, generalizations, and absence of critical thinking that is evoked by good narrative and richer forms of communication.

We can challenge the shrinking attention span issue by examples of the many people who practice good narratives as story makers and tellers and at the same time regularly participate in micro-media. Not only can micro-media not get in the way of the elaborations of good storytelling, they can spark and evoke more storytelling.

If you see an online posting or phone text message in the morning and see the author in the afternoon, an inquiry into the back story or the full story can be provoked by the earlier post or text, without which, we may never get the story at all.

As for the issue of stereotyping and generalizations, whole volumes have been written and films produced that provided the same function of prohibiting dialogue and inquiry that leads to more critical thinking. Fundamentalist, isolationist, and outright psychotic propaganda and dogmas can be conveyed in 200 characters, paragraphs, pages, or library shelves.

The haiku brevity of micro-media can do as much to spark a revolution or fan the flames of inspiration as much as anything of greater bandwidth or volume.

As the hyperlink has become a profound metaphor in hyper-connected times, micro-media can become as much as serendipitous containers of hyperlinks as they can be rich hyperlinks to the telling of our stories.

from “The Future of Narrative” section of an upcoming book on the power of stories

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 at 2:25pm and is filed under Appreciative living. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.