The Difficulties of Modern Storytelling

Humans communicate by telling stories. We always have and we likely always will. This fact rings true for professional communicators who use stories to deliver news, report new data, and interact with consumers. To explore the use of storytelling in the public relations industry and in modern media, I spoke with the Founder and CEO of WritLarge Public Relations, Jonathan Ghent. Watch the interview below:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to Ghent, traditional storytelling has mainly remained the same for centuries, in that all good stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. The storytelling formula provides an audience with a compelling narrative that draws them in and keeps them there to see just how things could unfold. Stories also have the power to capture an audience because of their ability to create emotional and human connections. This emotional component is what Ghent appreciates most about public relations. “I’m always trying to build in real-life examples, real stories about people because it’s more memorable and resonates more with audiences,” he explains.

 

The relationship built between the communicator and the public is often dependent on storytelling, but more needs to go into a story than personal anecdotes and emotional elements. Data has become a major driver of relationship-building for brands because of the public’s decreasing trust in the media. Different industries rely on data in different ways but in almost every field, numbers are used to make major decisions that can change the direction of a business. Some leaders certainly rely on their “gut” or trust humans to make decisions based on experience but facts and data need to be incorporated into stories in order to assure an audience that the truth is being communicated. As Ghent says, “Otherwise it’s just my opinion.”

 

While many elements of storytelling have remained over the years, modern media trends bring new challenges to online communicators. The public’s reliance on social media over the last decade has radically changed how brands communicate with their audiences on a daily basis. A major shift caused by the explosion of social media is the preference for video content over written content online. According to research from various sources, 69 percent of people prefer video content when learning something new, and 95 percent of the information presented in the video is retained. Conversely, only 10 percent of the information is retained when reading content for the first time, a dramatic drop off from video retention. This has forced many brands, organizations, and content creators to shift their stories from written works to video production in order to captivate and educate their audiences. 

 

To further complicate how stories are told, the average attention span online is a mere eight seconds, meaning that people spend more time tying their shoes than they do looking at a piece of content online. Social media platforms like Twitter and TikTok have made people accustomed to moving on to the next thing before they even understood the previous idea. This has become a massive challenge for storytellers because they need to create video content that completes an arc in a near-impossible time frame or develop a hook that compels viewers to stay longer. In recent years, the solution to this problem has often been neither. 

 

Instead, content creators and storytellers leave out data and statistics to save time in favor of bold claims that warrant an emotional response from viewers. And while these emotional responses are stronger and lead to more clicks and shares, the stories are often lacking key elements that encourage critical thinking. This media trend has caused the industry to absolutely skyrocket but leaves people without a full story. More importantly, it leaves them without the ability or time to contemplate the implications of the media they consume.