Linear Storytelling Research Articles

Sensemaking in organizational storytelling: From linear storytelling to antenarrative

Storytelling can be considered good professional practice for organizational communication as it resonates with stakeholder audiences and contributes to the process of sensemaking. This paper challenges two key assumptions that underpin storytelling in an organizational context. The first assumption is that clarity is the goal of storytelling and therefore linear modes of organizational storytelling should be used to reduce complexity to achieve clarity of understanding of organizational messages. The second assumption is that organizational storytelling consists only of the stories an organization tells about itself, and multiple understandings or ‘mixed messages’ are ‘noise’. This paper will argue that the storytelling concept antenarrative – or narrative fragments that can form emergent storytelling episodes – will expand the parameters of sensemaking in organizational storytelling. Furthermore, listening to emergent storytelling episodes can provide insights into prospective sensemaking, which has implications for organizational storytelling practices in our digital age. Putting antenarrative alongside concepts such as ‘listening’ and ‘engagement’ helps to improve organizational storytelling to work toward more effective organizational communication practice and respond to the challenges of complexity in storytelling, entanglements of the porous organization, and digital disruption.

The Lord Is Kind-Hearted And Cannot See The Poor: Social Reflections On The Film”Return To Dust”

Chinese cinema has always played an important role in spreading culture and transmitting values. As a kind of audio-visual media, it needs to be able to reflect social reality, moral concepts as well as cultural values in a profound way. However, in China, which has a strict film censorship system, the production and dissemination of films are strictly controlled and restricted by the government censorship system. There is a film Return to Dust, which created heat through many self-media, such as XiaoHongShu and DOUYIN, before its release, in which the previews showed real rural literary scenes that attracted wide attention. After its release, the social aspect of the film explored the deep-seated human emotions and regional issues, and a month later, the film was taken off the shelves, instantly triggering a wide-ranging discussion on censorship standards and artistic freedom [1]. Return to Dust, as a literary film, is sufficiently rich in cultural connotation and social significance for the audience. The film uses linear storytelling to show the current situation of the rural underclass in Northwest China during the four seasons of the year, the social ills and the complexity of human nature, which triggers the audience to think about "suffering". However, it is worth noting that although the film shows the "suffering", it also shows the warmth of the two underclass people, i.e. the goodness and beauty of human nature. However, such films with sensitive social issues are often restricted by the Chinese government's censorship. Exploring the reasons why Return to Dust has not been accepted by the modern Chinese government is not only a critical reflection on the censorship results of the film, but also a profound analysis of the censorship standards, value orientations, and the ideology of the censors behind the censorship system of Chinese cinema

Exploration of How Digital Media and Technology are Changing Narrative Forms and Literary Consumption

This study explores how digital media and technology are transforming narrative forms and literary consumption. With the rise of e-books, audiobooks, interactive narratives, and social media platforms, traditional linear storytelling is evolving into more interactive and participatory formats. Readers are no longer passive consumers but active participants, shaping narratives through real-time feedback and collaborative storytelling on platforms like Wattpad. The study employs a qualitative, exploratory research design, including interviews, focus groups, and observational analysis, to examine how digital platforms influence reader engagement and narrative structure. Key findings highlight the shift toward nonlinear, reader-driven narratives and the growing role of multimedia in storytelling. Additionally, the research underscores how these changes are democratizing literature, allowing diverse voices to reach global audiences without traditional publishing barriers. The study concludes by discussing the implications for authors, publishers, and literary institutions, as well as offering recommendations for future research on emerging technologies like AI and virtual reality in storytelling.

Role of AI Chatbots in Revolutionizing Gaming Experiences - A Survey

This paper investigates the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots into video games to enhance player experiences. In the realm of modern entertainment, video games often grapple with the constraint of linear storytelling, limiting replayability and the diversity of player interactions. Addressing this challenge, the study advocates for the adoption of AI chatbots, offering a detailed analysis of their features in comparison to traditional chatbot systems. The literature review explores recent research on AI chatbots in gaming, emphasizing their impact on transforming storytelling and fostering stronger connections with players. Ethical considerations related to data access and job displacement concerns are highlighted, emphasizing the necessity for player-centric development. Through a combination of comprehensive literature review and practical analysis of free and open-source games, the research assesses key features, including game type, engine, platform, AI capabilities, player engagement, NPC (non-playable character) behavior, visuals, and identified issues. The comparative analysis distinguishes the strengths and weaknesses of AI chatbots and traditional counterparts in gaming, providing valuable insights for developers aiming to create more immersive and dynamic gaming experiences.

Stream of consciousness as a narrative technique in the novel Ulysses

This paper focuses on using a stream of consciousness in James Joyce's novel Ulysses. Stream of consciousness is a narrative technique that depicts the continuous flow of thoughts and sensations experienced by characters' minds. In Ulysses, Joyce masterfully employs this technique to delve into the complex minds of his characters, Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus. By abandoning traditional linear storytelling, Joyce captures the intricacies of human thought processes and immerses readers in the characters' inner worlds. The novel's structure and narrative style are characterized by interior monologue, associative thinking, and a fragmented structure. Through these techniques, Joyce offers readers a unique and intimate reading experience, exploring themes of identity, memory, time, and the depiction of Dublin. By embracing the stream of consciousness, Joyce pushes the boundaries of conventional storytelling, inviting readers to engage with his characters' rich and intricate inner lives.

VEVERICA PLAŠLJIVICA MELANI VOT – INTERAKCIJA VERBALNOG I VIZUELNOG

The paper deals with the picture book Scaredy Squirrel illustrated and written by the Canadian author Melanie Watt. First, it is about the contemporary production of picture books about feelings, and then it is considered what is the place of the picture book Scaredy Squirrel among them. The picture book is analyzed as dual, visual, and verbal piece of art whose meaning emerges from the dialogue between image and text. The role of paratext, metatextual playing and the fragmentation of the narrative dominated by linguistic and pictorial enumerations and interruptions of linear storytelling with non-literary genres (tables, plans, lists) are pointed out. The emphasis is on interactivity and communicativeness and addressing a dual readership, children and adults. Children are encouraged in an unobtrusive, playful, and humorous way, while the understanding of adults is also offered with meanings related to criticism and parody of modern media and the society of fear.

Understanding the Impacts of Storytelling and Player Perspective on Learning Outcomes: The Mediating Roles of Engagements

This study leverages the framework of game-based learning to investigate the effects of storytelling and player perspective on learning outcomes of perceived learning effectiveness and performance. The study also explores the potential mediating roles of four distinct types of engagement: behavioral, cognitive, affective, and social. A 2*2 + 1 between-subjects experiment (linear versus nonlinear storytelling * first-person versus third-person perspective + non-game-based learning) is employed to investigate the impacts of these factors on learning outcomes. The results reveal a significant increase in perceived learning effectiveness and performance when game elements are added. Contrary to expectations, linear storytelling and third-person perspective have significantly higher positive impacts on learning outcomes compared to nonlinear storytelling and first-person perspective. The four types of engagement significantly mediate the relationships between storytelling, player perspective, and learning outcomes, indicating that the four types of engagement play critical roles in explaining the effect mechanism. The study sheds light on the theoretical and practical implications of these results.

Necrofiction and the Politics of Literary Memory by Oana Panaïté

Reviewed by: Necrofiction and the Politics of Literary Memory by Oana Panaïté Kaliane Ung Panaïté, Oana. Necrofiction and the Politics of Literary Memory. Liverpool UP, 2022. ISBN 978-1-802-07717-9. Pp. 208. This rich comparative analysis of literary works on death delves into the performative act of writing death, first as an act of remembering turned to the past, then as an intimate trajectory turned to the future, by installing a post-mortem textual monument, à la Mallarmé. When writing is rendered visible as a process rooted in the present, the text is revealed as an "act of mourning, not a fiction of mourning" (3). The French and Francophone writers chosen by Panaïté as case studies—Linda Lê, Patrick Modiano, Assia Djebar, Patrick Chamoiseau, and Maylis de Kerangal—form a literary canon investigating death as an event to be reactualised by the literary text, creating "narratives of the aftermath" (2) as they convey the chaos of our current world. These authors also favor an experimental approach against the hegemony of linear storytelling. For each instance of necrofiction, Panaïté relies on precise close reading to analyze the textual installation and its effects on time, space, memory, and narrative, thus resisting reading as a monolithic gesture. Drawing its interdisciplinary approach from narratology, trauma studies, postcolonial studies, and contemporary French thought, the author defines necrofiction as an ensemble of narratives emphasizing memorialization as the search for an ethical account of the past that weaves together the personal and the political (29-30). Through a "thematized, ritualized, enunciative, and meta-narrative engagement with the event of death," (30) necrofiction reassesses the meaning of finitude and memory, going beyond the dichotomy of life and death. Inhabiting this "duality" (178) and focusing on the metanarrative level of her corpus, Panaïté challenges the notion that literature's representational power is its center of gravity, and addresses the failures of literature by exploring what lies at the threshold, at the intersection of genres, and embracing hybridity. Embracing the diversity of francophone cultures and territories, the author analyzes spectres, ghosts, zombies, and other forms of haunting in the craft of literature: the plastic nature of "the dead as a collective entity" in Linda Lê (36), the "literary cenotaph" (54) that unfolds "literal duplications and mirror images" in Patrick Modiano (74), the polyphonic artificial crypt favoring hesitation over blind faith in Assia Djebar (106), the narrative zombification endowed with negative poetics in Patrick Chamoiseau (130), and the aesthetics of local and global crisis in Maylis de Kerangal's migration-inspired text, which calls for a form of "attentional activism" (172). The conclusion of each chapter replaces the examined novel in the overall corpus, thereby advancing the author's reflection on the genre of necrofiction. This book could be a valuable addition to a survey course on genres of storytelling in twentieth-century and contemporary literature, and could be included in seminars on narration and trauma. [End Page 197] Kaliane Ung University of Pittsburgh (PA) Copyright © 2023 American Association of Teachers of French

Story Telling: Writing the Body to Recall Life in Kanehara Hitomi’s Autofiction and Charlotte Roche’s Wrecked

In their way of living obsessions and traumas, the protagonists of Autofiction and Wrecked embody the conscious or unconscious search for a solution: Writing serves as the medium to tell a story as well as a means of re-entry into life. The fragmented narratives presented by Kanehara and Roche disrupt any linear storytelling as they reveal the protagonists’ painful memories. Placing the body at the centre of the analysis, the argumentation focuses on the sexual and textual aspects of the body. Aiming to demonstrate how the use of storytelling in Autofiction and Wrecked symbolises a recalling to life, this article first thematises the function of sexuality and secondly looks to the narrative itself. The body thus helps a process of healing.

Stolen Life, Stolen Time

Working on the B-side of time, this essay considers the way Afro-futurism often configures time as nonlinear and entangled. In doing so, it looks at contemporary apocalyptic forms of storytelling, Watchmen, Parasite, Black Mother, Exit West, and On Such a Full Sea. The way the timeline of racial capitalism is represented in each reveals how blackness affects narrative time and historical time. In addition to the stolen land (dispossession of Native sovereignty) and the stolen life (African enslavement) that inaugurated the Americas, stolen time is a critical axis of analysis. Speculative fiction holds the potential to undo the divisive power of speculation, in its rawest form, capitalism. Subverting colonial time, maroon time, or stolen time, accumulates at the edges of the plantation. Ultimately, marronage offers radical forms of waiting—slow and deliberate warfare—against the linear storytelling that erroneously tells us colonialism was inevitable.

StoryFacets: A design study on storytelling with visualizations for collaborative data analysis

Tracking the sensemaking process is a well-established practice in many data analysis tools, and many visualization tools facilitate overview and recall during and after exploration. However, the resulting communication materials such as presentations or infographics often omit provenance information for the sake of simplicity. This unfortunately limits later viewers from engaging in further collaborative sensemaking or discussion about the analysis. We present a design study where we introduced visual provenance and analytics to urban transportation planning. Maintaining the provenance of all analyses was critical to support collaborative sensemaking among the many and diverse stakeholders. Our system, STORYFACETS, exposes several different views of the same analysis session, each view designed for a specific audience: (1) the trail view provides a data flow canvas that supports in-depth exploration + provenance (expert analysts); (2) the dashboard view organizes visualizations and other content into a space-filling layout to support high-level analysis (managers); and (3) the slideshow view supports linear storytelling via interactive step-by-step presentations (laypersons). Views are linked so that when one is changed, provenance is maintained. Visual provenance is available on demand to support iterative sensemaking for any team member.

Intersections of New Media and Narratives: The Enhanced Ebook Reading Experience

This essay examines experimental author Mark Z. Danielewski’s The Fifty Year Sword and new media art collective Tender Claws’s Pry to show how enhanced ebooks critique the linear storytelling process and change the way our brain reads texts.

Ab/uses of Brechtian techniques in South Asian commercial films

The South Asian film industries have always found a niche in formula films that would cater to its audiences a free mix of action and comedy, preferably with a rich amount of romance in a well-‘melo’-ed drama (Ganti, 2004). Most of the commercially successful formula films in this region often house powerful film techniques which are Brechtian in nature. This paper locates them in select South Asian cult films. Brechtian techniques are quintessential to the Third cinema, which shuns the establishment and “commerce” altogether. Therefore, the paper takes an interest to comment on whether it is possible for these South Asian commercial films to do justice to Brechtian techniques or not. To do so, the paper has adopted the theoretical approaches of the Screen theorists who heavily align their thoughts with political and third cinema filmmakers. Espousing Screen theory, this paper analyzes the contents, i.e. select South Asian films [which are Beder Meye Josna (1989), Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), Punjab Nahi Jaungi (2017), and Chhakka Panja (2016)], and identifies employed Brechtian techniques in them such as freeze frame, direct audience addressing, use of songs and dance sequences to disrupt the linear storytelling as well as recognizable crossdressing in order to evaluate the uses or abuses of the techniques to gain commercial success in the market.

The Trans-boundary thoughts and formative characteristics of Flights(Bieguni) by Olga Tokarczuk

소설가 올가 토카르추크는 타자를 향한 공감과 이해를 바탕으로 경계와 단절을 허무는 글쓰기를 추구하는 폴란드의 소설가로 2018년 노벨 문학상을 수상했다. 2018년 멘부커 인터내셔널 상을 받은 『방랑자들 (Bieguni)』(2007)은 토카르추크의 대표작이다. 이 작품은 ‘여행’ 또는 ‘유랑’이라는 키워드를 공통분모로 116여 편의 다양한 글들이 등장하는 하이브리드 텍스트다. 단선적 혹은 연대기적인 흐름을 따르지 않고, 단문이나 짤막한 에피소드들을 촘촘히 엮어서 하나의 이야기를 빚어내는 토카르추크 특유의 내러티브 방식이 이 작품을 통해 완성되었다. 토카츠추크는 17세기부터 21세기까지 다양한 시공간을 배경으로 여행길에 오른 다양한 인물들을 보여주면서, 우리를 쉼 없이 움직이게 만드는 여행이야말로 인간을 자유롭게 해줄 수 있음을 강조한다. 여행기의 형식을 빌려 쓰인 『방랑자들』에서 토카르추크의 궁극적인 목적지는 ‘장소’가 아니라 ‘사람’이다. 구체적인 현실의 시간과 공간적 지표들을 의도적으로 배제한 채, 작가의 시선은 여행지에서 마주친 타자들에 온전히 집중되어 있다. 토카르추크는 그들의 삶과 죽음, 그들의 내밀한 이야기들을 ‘언어’의 힘을 빌려 작품 속에 꼼꼼히 기록함으로써 그들에게 불멸의 가치를 부여하고, 인생의 의미를 성찰한다.A Polish writer, Olga Tokarczuk is a winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature. In 2018, she won the Man Booker International Prize for her novel Flights(Polish title: Bieguni). This work is her representative novel. It is a hybrid novel consisting of 116 texts on the common keyword of ‘travel’ or ’vagabond’. Instead of using a linear storytelling form or chronological flow, Tokarczuk’s unique narrative style creates a story by weaving short paragraphs or episodes tightly together. Tokarczuk emphasizes that travel can truly free humans by keeping us moving continuously through the appearance of various characters who travel through different times and places in endless succession, between the seventeenth and twenty-first centuries. In Flights, which takes the form of a travelogue, Tokarczuk’s ultimate destination is ‘humans’ rather than places. Concrete time and spatial background are intentionally omitted, and the writer’s attention is solely on ‘other people’. Travel and roaming offer us different perspectives and views on our life, and lead us from fear of others to greater understanding and compassion. The writer creates imperishable value and leads us to introspect on our life by recording the life and death and the hidden stories of the characters she encounters along her journey, with the power of ‘language’. The unique structure and form of Flights stem from the writer’s intention to effectively reveal the property of travel. In this literary work, Tokarczuk presents trans-boundary thoughts as a form of drifting between philosophy and literature.

Affect and narrative rhythm in Heart of darkness

At the dawn of the twentieth century, Marlow, the character-narrator in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, asserts that life sensation constitutes the “truth” as well as the “subtle and penetrating essence” of lived experiences, an assertion that both looks backward to problematize the Cartesian cogito, and looks forward to engage with contemporary renewed interest in affect. By shifting the focus from Marlow’s linear narrative to his narrative interruptions, this paper reconsiders the text to explore the ways in which affect interacts with Marlow’s storytelling. More specifically, by closely reading affectively-charged moments and scenes, I discuss how Marlow’s three major narrative gaps work to convey affective experiences against the wider horizons of qualia experience, colonialism, and intersubjective affect. I also explore the dynamic interaction between Marlow’s narrative crisis and his linear storytelling. As such, I argue that affect, though incommunicable to others through ordered storytelling, seeks its expression in narrative disruptions; it, above all, structures Marlow’s narrative rhythm. This way, an interrogation of affect offers an alternative to understanding Marlow’s silence and achronological digressions: the disrupted narrative sequence is no opposite to chronologically-ordered narration, but rather, a continuation of the latter. Ultimately, this paper highlights the complexity of affect and its expression, a central concern that is still going on in current critical explorations.

Polyphony and the Emerging Collaborative Ecologies of Documentary Media Exhibition

Research Article| March 01 2020 Polyphony and the Emerging Collaborative Ecologies of Documentary Media Exhibition Patricia R. Zimmermann Patricia R. Zimmermann Patricia R. Zimmermann is professor of screen studies at Ithaca College. Her most recent books include The Flaherty: Decades in the Cause of Independent Film (2017, with Scott MacDonald) Open Space New Media Documentary: A Toolkit for Theory and Practice (2018, with Helen De Michiel) and Documentary Across Platforms; Reengineering Media, Place, and Politics (2019). Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Afterimage (2020) 47 (1): 61–66. https://doi.org/10.1525/aft.2020.471011 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Patricia R. Zimmermann; Polyphony and the Emerging Collaborative Ecologies of Documentary Media Exhibition. Afterimage 1 March 2020; 47 (1): 61–66. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/aft.2020.471011 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAfterimage Search How do media practices beyond the single screen imagine new ecologies to propel collaborative and co-creative modes in exhibition? How do these practices dispense with a romanticized auteurism, inadequate for multiscalar environmental and political issues that require many different perspectives and strategies? How do these new screen ecologies practices dispense with causal, character-driven linear storytelling? Can theorizations of co-creation move beyond production modalities into rethinking distribution, exhibition, and spectatorship/community/audiences? Can a collaborative polyphony of living, embodied ecologies of co-creative practices be enacted? In Fall 2018, Alexandra Juhasz and Alisa Lebow launched an ambitious online participatory project in the online journal World Records entitled “Beyond Story: An Online Community-Based Manifesto.” It invites readers to contribute short articles about a wide range of documentary practices beyond long-form narrative story structures. They argue that documentary entails a great range of forms and practices beyond the “constricting contours” of a “one-size-fits all framework that... You do not currently have access to this content.

Development of an Information-oriented Content on the Endangered Species of Banana based on Storytelling Method

바나나는 유엔식량농업기구가 지정한 세계에서 여덟 번째로 중요한 작물이며, 주요 식량인 밀, 쌀, 옥수수 다음으로 지구상에서 생산량이 네 번째로 많다. 맛뿐만 아니라 영양분도 풍부하며 미래의 주요 식량자원으로도 주목받는 과일이다. 하지만 바나나는 인류의 이기심에서 비롯된 비정상적인 재배방법 때문에 오늘날 멸종위기에 처해 있다. 본 연구의 목적은 교과과정을 통해 농업혁명에 대한 배경 지식이 있는 중·고등학생들에게 바나나 멸종에 관한 정보를 쉽고 흥미롭게 전달할 수 있는 디지털 정보 콘텐츠를 개발하는 것이다. 바나나가 멸종위기에 처하게 된 원인과 과정을 스토리텔링 기법을 활용 하여 선형적 구조로 보여줌으로써 사용자들이 흥미를 갖도록 하였다. 또한 여러 단계로 구성된 스토리와 각각의 스토리를 뒷받침하는 정보 그래픽의 관계를 상하로 움직이는 병렬구조를 활용하여 시각화시킴으로써 본 콘텐츠와 사용자 사이의 자연스러운 상호작용이 일어나도록 하였다. 본 연구를 통해 멸종위기 종에 대한 인류의 관심이 증대되기를 기대한다.Banana is the eighth most important crop in the world designated by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). In terms of production, it is the fourth most harvested crop following wheat, rice, and corn, considered to be a promising food source for mankind as it is not only scrumptious but also rich in nutrients. However, abnormal cultivation methods that mankind has invented to breed bananas is currently pushing them to the state of extinction. The aim of this study is to develop information-rich digital contents that can easily and intriguingly convey information about steadily but certainly increasing risk of banana extinction. The end-users are middle and high school students who are assumed to be aware of the agricultural revolution through their school curriculum. The linear storytelling method was meant to encourage the end-users to be interested in the causes and processes in which banana has become endangered. For generating a natural interaction between the content and the end-users, a parallel, upper-lower structure was used, in which the relationship between the stories comprising several stages and the information graphic supporting each story is represented. This paper can support an information campaign about the endangered species.

Visiones proféticas, series de calidad, el nuevo modo de contar historias de Twin Peaks

Tras el debut de Twin Peaks en la ABC en abril de 1990, la visión —una secuencia de imágenes que relacionan información del futuro o el pasado de la narración— se ha hecho un producto de primera necesidad de muchas series de cadenas de cable básicas y premium, incluyendo Buffy, la cazavampiros (WB), Battlestar Galactica (SyFy) y Juego de tronos (HBO). Este artículo argumenta que Twin Peaks, en efecto, ha introducido un modo de contar historias llamado “visionarración”, que se basa en la antigua poesía épica al enfocarse en los principales personajes que reciben conocimiento de figuras enigmáticas, parecidas a dioses, que controlan su mundo. Sus visiones rompen la narración lineal, permitiendo que una serie asuma los aspectos formales del medio y cree la impresión de que sus dispares episodios constituyen un todo único. Esto los ayuda a calificar como “televisión de calidad”, al tiempo que disfrazan ejemplos de manipulación autoral evidente dentro de los textos como productos de la divina causalidad interna. Consecuentemente, todos los incidentes narrativos, sin importar qué tan coincidentes o irrelevantes sean, pasan a ser parte de un gran diseño. Un examen detallado de Twin Peaks y Carnivàle demostrará cómo opera este modo, por qué su popularidad entre los contadores de historias modernos y cómo elevar el estatus cultural del programa.

GPU-Based Realtime System for Cinematic Virtual Reality Production

Relatively inexpensive head mounted display (HMD) devices made possible by advances in digital imaging technology are moving the immersive virtual and augmented reality mediums into the entertainment mainstream. This departure from the traditional art of linear storytelling requires a richer production workflow and toolset capable of seamlessly integrating numerous potential narratives. An effective virtual reality (VR) workflow requires low-latency realtime synchronized capture of multiple live high-resolution video streams, realtime stitching and viewing of the captured assets, and realtime composition with computer generated elements optimally rendered for the HMD. This paper presents a realtime system for VR production that encompasses optimal high-bandwidth data transfers, graphics processor unit-based video stitching, and techniques for optimally rendering to the individual display characteristics of specific VR HMDs for on-set preview.

The men who stare at science

The men who stare at science