Power of story

Power of story!
Power of story

In this section, we explore the power of story. Story is a very powerful stuff - it gets people together. How do you develop your story? There are a couple of hints:

Frame your ideas with your audience’s view

Facts and evidence rarely help as people tend to reject any information or facts that counter their beliefs. So, data has to be in a context. People remember how a story makes them feel. It is important to know your audience and frame your idea to align with their values/views.

But what does ‘knowing your audience’ mean? What it means to ‘know your audience’ when communicating about science can give you an idea.

Tell a story for a wider and non-specialised audience

You can see beutiful summaries of scientific findings in Useful Science. The aim of the site is to make science useful in daily life by telling a new discovery in 5 seconds’ reading to wider and non-specifice audience.

Biases to be aware of - Confirmation bias

It is a challenge to interpret information in an unbiased way as we tend to interpret information as confirmation of our existing beliefs and/or ideas. It is called “confirmation bias”. How can we convince others with your story then?

How to challenge bias?

If possible, get some background understanding of your audience. What would their current perception be, or potential concerns around the topic of interest? Can you approach your topic from a different direction? For example, if you have someone that isn’t that interested in the environment, and thinks that environmental laws cost too much money for business, but you want to highlight climate change, talk about :

The rising cost of insurance due to more natural disasters, caused by the change in weather cycles The financial benefit and potential profit of hosting electronic vehicle production in Australia or cheap maintenance on solar farms vs profit

Interesting article about confirmation bias

A blog post by Farnan Street (Confirmation bias and the power of disconfirming evidence) is an interesting to read. You will understand why some people do not see a point you want to make.

Success story from Bono (U2)

Did you know that Bono was a strong advocate of AIDS support? He reached out to the American evangelical community by framing the AIDS problem with christianity view and got their support. How? There is a nice article to read.

Activity - How do you explain your research to your non-expert friends?

You have an opportunity to explain your research to an expert in your field. At the same time, you may have a chance to talk about your research to your non-expert family members and/or friends. Are you going to talk the same way to different audiences? Do you think your non-expert audience understands your research topic if you talk the same way you talk to experts? Does your non-expert audience know jargons? So, in this exercise, please think:

  1. Think how you explain your research to an expert in your field.
  2. Think how you explain your research to your non-expert family members and/or friends.

Structure your story

A professional science communicator, Craig Cormick says that “Knowing your audience and your communication objective is crucial, but if you can turn your message into a story, it has a much better chance of being accepted.”
Remember, Narrative flow = Story (how it might be described in chronological order) + Plot (how the story is told)

Storyboarding

A storyboard is a planning tool for visualising and organising ideas

A storyboard helps you:

Storyboarding and storymapping
Storyboard template example by Whisternefet, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Storyboard_template_example.svg>

Now, it is time to put things together!