Writing a collective story to build community

Prolégomenes  (long introduction)

Christian Salmon decries the fables constructed in the Hollywood way to make us swallow perspectives carried by a ruling elite (military, political economy, etc.). The story of a war by generals, the story of a crisis by economic leaders, the story of the goods produced by the big communication agencies, and even the quasi-advertising construction of politicians. There would be an art of story-telling that fascinates, that reassures that reflects the interests expressed.

The pedagogical dynamic is also affected. Trainers would be asked to tell stories rather than a succession of facts, to keep the audience captive. Cambell's (1977) work on "The 1000 Faces" provides the structure of a course that aims to inspire as well as instruct. But, our eyes and ears are perfectly accustomed to worked speeches. They spot the slightest sign of inconsistency between words and actions. The use of narratives in organizations is well documented by management researchers (Mahy 2008, or Revue Française de gestion 2005) who have understood the importance of oral communication, images and traces to accompany the transformations in gestation and to give them meaning. They have observed how the history of the company is written, how a culture is created and how the small everyday gestures and the major strategic decisions are shaped.

Individuals are not fooled by any staging. Moreover, they also put on display their self-recognition on the occasion of obtaining a diploma or validating their experience. The valorization of their online performance on social networks contributes to the creation of a professional digital identity. This is one of the first resources for action.

The story and its narrative dynamics that hold us in suspense are thus used at the macro-social, meso-social and micro-social levels.

The end of the great (macro-social) récit »

The novel of the national history of the gesture of the Gauls, à those of the Franks, while passing by the beautiful succession of the high deeds of the monarchs by the troubadours until ’the great fables current concoctedés by the maîtres advertising do not pass any more so well. Jean-François Lyotard (1979), champion of the post-modernit; (dissolution of reason as a transcendent totality), shows the end of the Great Récit Unifier ».

The manipulation of major rhetorical figures such as the « national destiny »,  the « rôle of the party », « the place of the family »,« the values of public life, the immanence of the church, the greatness of the armies, the honor of a man, etc. The listeners are immediately alerted. The latter tend to believe what they experience on a daily basis rather than what they are told.

The verification that they do by themselves more and more easily online allows them to judge more reliably. The result is a weakening of public statements that come from a single source. Even an intuitive mistrust of authorities who have long used language (without the associated acts) to project themselves further than the immediate present and to make people believe more than it was possible to hold. It results in a great flexibility of identities and a desire to project oneself. The imaginary in the post-modernity has a central place.

Supporting transitions and shared narratives (mé-social)

At the méso-social level, the way in which organizations tell their stories and grasp themselves is at stake. Of course, there is the role of communication departments, which produce language, chosen vocabulary, which illustrates strategic orientations and seeks to avoid offending any stakeholder. The image of glossy paper that ends up being glossy. The mé-social level is also the one where human communities can pick up the thread of their history.

The sociologist Gaulejac promotes a clinical sociology to make sense of the récit. In Michael White Australian aborigines are invited to speak out and tell their own story, which is not that of their colonizer, the one telling what suits him. History is littered with stories of colonizers bringing good to humanity. The récit of the Gallic War by César not only gives him the beautiful rôle, but obscures many historical dimensions that researchers exhume from tombs, snippets of texts (calendar of Coligny), statuary or oral tradition. What would the Gauls have told about their own history? This expression of a community for its own purposes has restorative virtues. Michael White presents a true narrative theory that helps aboriginals to project themselves into the common reality. These narratives preserve the past and project the future. When they are created with collective intelligence, they have the power to link and mobilize communities.

Life stories : small and large misères and identity constructions (micro-social)

A branch of sociology is reacute in the invention of life stories. It has been particularly popularized by monographs of Polish peasant narratives being integrated into Chicago in the early 20th century. In La misère du monde (1993), Pierre Bourdieu gives voice to those who are deprived of it. He listens to what everyone has to say and gathers a sum of facts. It seeks to capture the singularity and to highlight points of view on realities experienced without excessive criticism of the material captured. Francophone authors such as Pierre Dominici or Gaston Pineau (2013) invest energy in understanding the thematic force of the life story model. It is a social practice of both humanities research and training that they are developing that is far more powerful than the mere flexibility of the diary. It opens up the power of the self, its discovery, its transformation and its learning. Pineau and Legrand define it as a "research and [a] construction of meaning à from personal temporal facts, it engages a process of expression of the experience".

Acting with narratives in the digital world

The use of narratives in training has been well documented in the past. But in the digital age, how are stories used?

• What about their implementation in a digital context that accelerates their circulation, propagates fake news, de-constructs narrative patterns, authorizes a multiplicity of authors and continuous correction and the addition of readers' opinions and commentary?
• What about reading them by snippet, by pop-up or quote, excerpt popping out of context, expurgated of speaker and médiation? Synthesis or meaning shift?
• What about efficient methods for recruiting the collective through language when it is in disrepair or on the defensive ?

The «digital stotytelligng» would be a new form of  narrative taking shape through digital technical means. The digital storytelling is a multi-media enrichment of journalistic or intimate expression that privileges, immediacy, intimacy and proximity. The reading path is individualized and requires dynamic interfaces that further accentuate the life of the subject matter and the desire to interact with it and enrich the narrative content.

The form is that of the webzine or webdocumentary, the blog. It favors recommendations and rapid dissemination on social media. When digital storytelling is chosen as a collaborative reporting medium, it requires an architect of the collaborative experience of narrative enrichment, even an experience designer and a community manager. Indeed, the framework of a text is subject to evolution, the editorial bias guides the readers-authors but requires an accompaniment so that the experience transmitted collectively is fecund.

The Fall of the Story

The story because it is language, is a bearer of life of individual and collective reacute;alization.

• At the individual level, the digital has aroused and encouraged new forms of writing and writing, such as the case of apprentice novelists who have more leisure to find the cho of an audience with social platforms of distribution and purchase (My Bestseller), or even collaborative-novel-writing.
• At the organizational level, the abundance of emails, forums, and workflows is an invaluable source of understanding the formal and informal dynamics at work, these micro-narratives put into perspective teach about the dynamics of companies.
• At the macrosocial level the stories are always the result of professional media, but also of a whole blogosphere, or of a variety of social networks that bring more contradictions or nuances.

Digital can help with its collaborative writing capabilities. Biographies, travelogues, company stories take on a pedagogical dimension through wider sharing. Self-shaping becomes more easily the shaping of a community through the means of a writing that becomes more collaborative. Stories, if they become more and more shared, could participate in a growing collective intelligence.

Illustration: Abdulah_Shakoor - Pixabay

Sources

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https://www.decitre.fr/livres/la-misere-du-monde-9782757851524.html

Campbell, J., & Crès, H. (1977). The héros with a thousand and one faces.
https://www.decitre.fr/livres/le-heros-aux-mille-et-un-visages-9782290069011.html

The narrative factory  http://www.lafabriquenarrative.org/blog/

Lyotard, J. F. (1979). The postmodern condition: report on knowledge Paris: Les Éditions de minuit
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Management and the Future https://www.cairn.info/revue-management-et-avenir-2010-4-page-14.htm

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Pineau, G., & Le Grand, J. L. (2013). Les histoires de vie:«Que sais-je?» n° 2760. Presses universitaires de France.
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The Digital storytelling forms new mémergeantes - Cécile Cros, Julien Aubert, Nicolas Bry, Denis Fabre - Socila Média Club
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Vincent de Gauljac - Clinical Sociology
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