A brief summary of the Christian Salmon book (in French) :"Storytelling" - La Découverte 2007
Note that Christian Salmon also writes each week in "Le Monde du Weekend", concentrating on the subject of storytelling, corporate and political.
Storytelling is a relatively new concept in France, but upon reflexion, proves as ancient as time itself, for one has only to open the Old Testament to see its relevance... Still, the ramifications of storytelling + technology (advertising discourse, internet buzz, ) + knowledge management (KM) (for-profit research, corporate applications) might be seen, with hindsight, as having been powerful tools in the persuasion industry.
In any case, the adwars continue whatever the name, whatever the form... beware dear citizen, for the end is (programmed to be) nigh (near) !! Butt-chips, neuro-advertising and nano-brandbots are the coming thing, say certain well-informed paranoidals. So don't get rubber-ducked !
'STORYTELLING, The Narrative Turn '
Initial notions
- Evan Cornog (Professor of Journalism) : ‘ Without a good story, there is neither power nor glory. ‘
- Gilles Deleuze : notion of national ‘narrative of history’ (USA : how the West was won)
- Roland Barthes : ST = one of the major categories of knowledge. Every people has its national narrative.
- ST (storytelling) = an artificial viewing of reality, ordering the emotions, creating identification on the part of the receptor (e.g. Walt Disney films, Nike, Coke, Apple, Volvo…)
- Tristan Todorov : la narratologie = science of ST
- Appeared in the early 1990s in the USA
- Concept began to have some success from 1995
- Taken up by marketing people in USA, in order :
- the product
- the logo (esp 1990s – the swoosh)
- the brand (even before WW2)
- the brand image
- Nike already began to recruit anti-Nike youth from the streets in 1999
- In 2000, consumers were becoming ‘brand fickle’ (consumer scepticism, consumer expertise, pseudo-innovations)
- Also, ‘No Logo’ (NK), the rise of the street, Michael Moore, sweatshops, Nike…)
- 2000 : branding became ST e.g. Chivas created ‘The Chivas Legend’ in 12 episodes
- 3000 messages/day in West
- Brands and myth (G. Lewi, HEC) in 3 stages :
- heroism (difference)
- wisdom (value)
- myth (conscience) - Stories, like jokes = fascination in the receptor
- New : the ’narrative universe’;
- Rolf Jensen : invented the ‘Dream society’, based on emotion
- Seth Godin : ‘it’s not the product, it’s the story people like’ (faith, not information ?)
- Narrative marketing : proposed a ‘vision of the world’, convergence conscience/product
- Seen as a managerial discipline, not a gimmick
- However, ‘tout est récit’ (CVs, canteen conversations, rumours…)
- Stemmed from the ‘culture of secrecy’ revealed in firms in USA by early ‘storytellers’ who spoke to employees of firms to encourage them to express themselves
- This became an identification of ‘plots’ within the firm : ‘organisational storytelling’ (1991) ; see also case of Renault
- Rumour, chatting in firms seen as substance (M.Foucault ‘Les Mots et les Choses’) ; See also role of gurus, ‘griots’ in Africa (Mali)
- In France, ST arrived late, till then it was :
- the manager, then
- the leader, then
- the coach - Also, metaphor of ‘team’ ; Renault : firm seen as having ‘narrative capital’, employees as heroes… Danone and IBM
- France also : ‘personnaliser les parcours’, ‘contextualisation’
- Move began from ‘industrial capitalism’ to ‘emotional capitalism’
- New management mode = ‘neo-management’, more creative, inventive, loving, sympathetic, authentic, even noble, heroic…
- The end of ‘Fordism’ (= accumulation, hierarchy, paternalism…)
- 1990s = with globalisation, search for a new paradigm (ref : fiction by Don de Lillo ‘Players’, 1977 )
- But restructuring of firms = disorder, so rejection by workers, unions…
- Neo-management = fast, light, exact, multiple, 21st C…
- Firms seen as ‘storytelling organisations’ (Boje)
- But, some saw ST as a ‘prison’, a ‘collective, restrictive myth’, something ‘cosmetic’
- Hollywood / Enron : producers of illusion in entertainment and finance (cosmetic, hypothetical values, magic of the market)
- New capitalism, through ST, seeks ‘to saturate the production zone and the symbolic area’
- ST as a :
- marketing tool
- HR tool
- regulator of industrial relations
- transmitter of knowledge
- crystalliser of brand image
- Arrival of the ‘mimetic economy’ with the production and circulation of models of behaviour
- 11 centres (CC) in India : employees require ‘accent neutralisation’ + ‘cross-cultural sensitivity’
- Towards the anglo melting-pot’ (350,000 in CC in India)
- Arrival of the ‘mimetic economy’ with the production and circulation of models of behaviour
- USA 2004 : manipulation of an image of GWB hugging a young woman called Ashley, a post 9/11 story, used by W in electorally uncertain states, broadcast on the the web as a 60’’ clip (ref. James Carville)
- The term ‘spin doctor’ came from RR’s election in 1984
- Kerry 2004 : lost because his stories were too weak, too intellectual
- Remember : ‘Facts speak but stories sell’
- Democrats = litany ; Republicans = stories (e.g. GWB 2004 as alcoholic/Jesus/redemption)
- Evan Cornog : all Presidents have to ‘sell’ their stories to the people
- RR as ‘conteur’ : anecdotes, jokes, one-liners, but Clinton = spinner
- R.Nixon (Tricky Dick) : anti-Press, tried to manipulate public opinion using TV
- 1990s : the PR of the Whitehouse, created under RR, invented the ‘soundbite’ and the ‘story of the day’
- Dick Cheney : aimed to ‘control the agenda’ of the Prez
- Aim to ‘impose a story’, ‘spin the story’
- Good PR = plausibility, not pertinence
- Collaboration between Hollywood (HW) and the U.S Army via videogames (Institute of Creative Technologies) – ref. Steve Silberman in ‘Wired’ magazine 2004
- Began in 1996 : a National Research Council colloquium hi-tech with Dept. of Defense (DOD) and ILM (Industrial Light and Magic)
- Notion of linear storylines, credibility of story (for soldiers)
- Post 9/11 : meetings HW scriptwriters/DOD heads on possible terrorist/DOD options. Mix fiction/reality sought
- Don de Lillo (writer) : U.S society as ‘saturated by fictions’, linked to erosion of values (TV series ‘24H’ and torture)
- ‘Realpolitik of fiction’ : Bush advisor 2002 : « We are an empire and we are creating our own reality »
- Journalists seen as merely ‘reality-based’…towards the end of investigative journalism, the ‘defeat of empiricism’ (Ron Suskind)
- Propaganda became ‘infotainment’
- Seeds of this by 1918 (Gustave le Bon and mass psychology, Clausewitz, Freud), also Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays, the father of PR (see web soon in class)
- TV, internet being taken over by entertainment industry giants via consolidation (Disney, Viacom, TW)
- Also, simplistic 24h information (CNN, Fox) where reality and fiction are mixed ; also as in ‘reality shows’ (infotainment)
- Seth Godin (U.S marketer) : journalists seek info which will sell the advertising
- Fox’s aim :
- to tell a story
- to stress personal responsibility, conservative, Republican values
- to supply news which appears impartial
- Fox : decides on the next day’s news (‘The news is what we want it to be’ D.Boyles, Fox)
- Fox : use of ‘embedded journalists’ (500 in Iraq = fake journalists ?) – fake articles supplied for local Iraqi press (‘Lincoln group’) acc to ‘L.A Times’ in 2005
- U.S govt bought a paper and a radio station in Iraq as prop mouthpiece (ref. ‘The Greatest Story ever Sold’ by F.Rich)
- Influence of the ‘religious right’ in information (Pat Robertson’s network)
- Use by GWB of decorators, banners for his speeches (‘Mission accomplished’ with GW in aviator’s jacket, see HW's ‘Top Gun’)…Tom Cruise fiction evoked
- Basic staging : iconography = Statue of Lib, U.S Prez, warship
- 2001 : Colin Powell saw State Dept as brand. Foreign policy to be ‘marketed’. Charles Beers (CB), brand-obsessive adman, took over this role
- CB : used the internet + videos to reach youth ; said facts counted less than emotion
- Reality-based vs faith-based system. Note that etymology of ‘Propaganda’ = faith of RC church
- See also J.Billington’s book (neocon) on religion and revolution. Link between neocon rev'n and nihilists of past ?
- The ‘new narrative order’. Since 2000 in USA, see now H.Guaino in France
- Ségo as ‘lovemark’
- Sarkozy : recourse to Boston Consulting Group which proposes an ideological template for world politicians (world as regions)
- ST (CS) = a new form of symbolic violence weighing on people, influencing their opinions, transforming and exploiting their emotions, taking away their ability to think critically
- The need (see RR’s ’counter-reality’ in 1984) for a ‘counter-narrative’ in 2007...
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