Brief thesis update and "Storytelling on Blogs?"

It has been a while that I have blogged, since completing my comprehensive examination. I have now started the proposal. So, the new topic/title of my proposed thesis proposed is something like this:

"A study of entrepreneur blogs as social information spaces, information sources and sources of personal and organizational storytelling/narratives ."

Essentially, I am looking to do a content analysis of entrepreneur blogs to see the types of information they provide and if stories are also included. I am currently working on the proposal. Right now I am at the point in the proposal, where I am conceptualizing and theorizing about storytelling in blogs. One of the essential question is: Can blogs tell stories? Another question is: How does storytelling in blogs differ from oral storytelling? I would like to spend the rest of this blog posting beginning to frame answers to these two questions.

Blogs as platforms for storytelling

Without a doubt, there are persons out there that view blogs as being a platform for telling stories or personal narratives, especially for stories or narratives based on one's own life experiences. This idea is prevalent in a 2006 Pew Internet study on American bloggers that referred to bloggers as being the ‘Internet’s new storytellers’ in reference to their blogging mostly about personal life stories and experiences (Lenhart & Fox, 2006). Arguably, prior to the emergence of blogs and blogging, the Web was a place for hypertextual and hyperlinked documents, and to a lesser extent, a place for conversations through chat rooms and discussion fora. Laurel (2001) further suggests that the Web became a platform for storytelling largely due to the birth of blogging. Blogs in her view enriched the Web as a significant development in computer-based  or computer-mediated storytelling. Laurel argues that blogs enabled personal meta-storytelling on the Web, transforming Web search from a publishing and storage medium of hyperlinked documents to one also enriched by blogs with shared life experiences. Laurel’s views are also supported by Langellier and Peterson (2004), that argue that “one example of storytelling on the Internet” is the growth and emergence of “online journals and diaries” (p.160). These according to Langellier and Peterson (2004) recapitulate past experience and personal narratives of events.

How does blog storytelling differ from oral storytelling?

Langellier and Peterson suggest that blogs, while not being the same as oral communication, approximate oral communication more than traditional documents and written communication. They make the case that blogs are more like personal correspondence and writing than novels or newspapers.  Blogs make one's personal experience public. Yet the making of that experience public, does not change the intimate storytelling feel that accompanies oral storytelling. One by reading a blog, feels that a person is speaking personally to them. Blog readers express the views that while reading a blog, they feel that they are in the company of the blogger. Bloggers on the other hand, reveal the view that when blog readers respond to their blog posts, they feel a connection of familiarity as if those persons hanged out with them.


Langellier and Peterson make the case that blogs are like another window to real life, and that reading or writing blogs require bodily participation and is not a question of disembodied communication. People bodily participate in blogs by “the labour of vision” and through participation with their hands and keyboards, but forgoing "the obligation of reciprocal exchange” (Langellier & Peterson, 2004, p. 167). For Langellier and Peterson, blogs "extend the body's capability for storytelling", enabling storytelling to not be limited by geographic separation of the storyteller from the audience.

References:

Langellier, K., & Peterson, E. E. (2004). Storytelling in daily life: Performing narrative. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Laurel, B. (2001). Utopian entrepreneur. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Lenhart, A., & Fox, S. (2006). Bloggers: A portrait of the internet’s new storytellers. pew internet & american life project. ( No. 2012). Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2006/PIP%20Bloggers%20Report%20July%2019%202006.pdf.pdf

 

Narrating the OPAC presentation

So I completed my presentation at NCompass Live Tech Talk with Michael Sauers. Feedback from the show as well as from my oral presentation at my faculty got me thinking about the viability of using agent characters to help introduce users to content in the OPAC and guide them to even more useful content. Some of those ideas I will think about further as I prepare and refine my thoughts further for the presentation at Canadian Association for Information Science in June, 2013.

In the mean time, you can view the slide presentation here

NCompass Live: Narrating the OPAC: How Can Storytelling and Narrative Analysis Improve the User-Friendliness of the Online Public Access Catalogue from Nebraska Library Commission

Or alternately, you can watch the recording of my presentation here:

Corporate online storytelling: for libraries?

I found an interesting read on movements towards corporate online storytelling this week in my Twitter feed. In Elliot's (2012) article for The New York Times, I discovered that Coca Cola is about to rebrand their online presence as an online magazine. In doing so, Coca Cola's new Web site is to reflect its marketers recasting 'communications with consumers as storytelling rather than advertising.' I quote:

'Just as attention is being paid to developing content ...for brand storytelling, an appetite also exists for corporate storytelling.'

Storytelling on Coke's Web site will be 'subjective, not objective...favorable to the brands, products and interests of the Coca-Cola Company.'

'Although the content comes “with a point of view,” Mr. Brown acknowledged, “we want to be a credible source.”'

Coca Cola is also not afraid to make mistakes with their online storytelling and magazine type site. The informant Ashley Brown, director for digital communications and social media at the Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta, states:

“I’m sure we’re going to make mistakes,” he said, “and readers are going to tell us.”

Implication for libraries

I think I am ahead of my time in LIS: advocating online storytelling for library websites when the field's not quite ready for it. Currently there have been moves within library schools to dispense with storytelling courses from LIS curriculum and library education (Sturm, 2010). Further, within LIS, librarians have predominantly seen storytelling as a service to children (Sturm, 2010). This is despite the fact that there is a growing interest in storytelling and the professionalization of storytelling for adults (Sturm, 2010). In fact, there is also growing interest in corporations for corporate storytelling (Greene & Del Negro, 2010). Hence, while business schools are becoming more interested in offering storytelling courses (Marek, 2011), library schools are thinking about getting rid of them altogether.



In my view, there needs to be a course within library schools that will deals with institutional digital storytelling. This is because, in the age of social media and Library 2.0, libraries need to move online and tell their stories. Libraries need to find ways of connecting with their users and potential users in the online world. We need content on our websites and a social media presence that is constantly updated and engaging, reminding our users that we are a channel to credible information sources. Our Websites must now be more like blogs or online magazines, with a constant flow of information. We should not only tell users what we have, but also post commentaries and view points, to represent the information that we have within our collections. In short, we need to take a page from Coca Cola's book on corporate storytelling. If Coca Cola is thinking about becoming a publisher, why not libraries?

Libraries are already telling stories within their walls. We have countless exhibits and exhibitions within our walls and some libraries have taken these and posted them on their websites. However, our practices are all being done without examining the theories of good storytelling, digital storytelling and even the theories of institutional or corporate storytelling. My questions are:

• Are library professionals equipped to tell good stories online and offline? 
• Are library professionals able to recognise what stories are worthy of being told?

Storytelling can be fictional, non-fictional or a mixture of realism with fiction as in the case with life writing or organisational storytelling. Libraries can use parables to tell stories that convey a truth about how libraries work. Libraries can tell stories to workers within the libraries or even to the users and other outsiders of the library.  In fact, I have written 3 blogs posts about how libraries can use storytelling to their advantage (See blog post 1, blog post 2 and blog post 3). However, none of these posts even begin to speak to how libraries can use online storytelling to attract library users and engage them in using the library's online or physical services. This is a gap that I am also studying at current.


At least one LIS scholar, Marek (2011) has begun to develop a body of knowledge on organisational storytelling for libraries, though aimed at library managers and administrators (see my blog post on Kate Marek) Hopefully, I will be able to develop a course after completing my comprehensive examinations and research proposal that will also address this issue. For indeed, from the start of my PhD program, my original interest has always been in using the Web and folklore to design a more engaging experience for library users. And so far, I have felt that my extensive readings have equipped me with the theoretical knowledge to do so.



References:

Elliott, Stuart. (2012, November 11). Coke Revamps Web Site to Tell Its Story. The New York Times. Retrieved from:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/12/business/media/coke-revamps-web-site-to-tell-its-story.html?_r=0

Greene, E., & Del Negro, J. M. (2010). Storytelling: Art and technique (4th ed.). Santa Barbara, California, Denver, Colorado, Oxford, England: Libraries Unlimited.

Marek, K. (2011). Organizational storytelling for librarians: Using stories for effective leadership. Chicago: American Library Association.

Sturm, B. (2010) Storytelling. In  Bates, M. J., & Maack, M. N. Encyclopedia of library and information sciences (3rd ed.). Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.