Listening Post: A storied Life
When we want the lowdown on someone, we ask “What’s his story?” When we want to hear what’s happening, we ask “What’s the story?”
One reason we want the story is that while a narrative may contain information, it’s not just information. It’s more. Just how much more has been the subject of recent research by psychologists and brain scientists. For example, by mapping brain activity while a person read a story, they found that the mind actually simulated the action of the story, activating appropriate portions of the brain in sequence with the narrative.
Our fascination with characters also has its roots in how we think. Brian Boyd, who has written much on the origin of stories, concludes that “narrative–unlike mere communication–is essentially a compression of social information, which in other words means that narrative overwhelmingly focuses our attention on ‘strategic information.’” Narrative and the brain, Michael Ferguson, postiveneuro.com
Neolithic journalists
Boyd says, “The salient features of narrative are the strategic data, for example, of whether Jack is sleeping with Jill, rather than a metric of how deeply Jack is sleeping….
“We therefore have an endless fascination with character information, since it helps us to predict the behavior of those we interact with…”
“Just as our continued craving for sweet and fat reflects old circumstances of our environment of evolutionary adaptation…, likewise our often indiscriminate appetite for social information reflects an era in our evolutionary adaptation when we were likely to encounter repeatedly everyone we heard about.”
So, despite the protestation “Just the facts, please!”—we’re wired to want the facts in the form of a story. And that’s why journalism, whatever its medium, will always be a subset of story-telling, not of information science.
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Stories wrapped around the facts is an NPR format… “The pictures are better on radio.” It’s why I’m addicted to NPR. Thanks NCPR!
Just remember that when the judge asked the prostitute if she ever slept with Joe, she honestly answered, “No.”
Excellent and thought-provoking commentary.
I love reading the late Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuściński, who was famous — some say infamous — for his form of “literary journalism.” Critics say that his work was sometimes closer to fiction than to non-fiction, but he certainly could make a story come alive. In doing so, I remember its flavor, not just its facts.
And, of course, the Jesuits’ Spiritual Exercises involve entering into the scriptural text so that the person doing the Exercises experiences the situation the text is trying to convey.