8: Interviewing Beyond the Basics - Storylistening

Storylistening

The Oxford English Dictionary takes no position on the possible meanings of "storylistening," jumping silently from “storyless” to “storyteller.” So since there is no one existing definition, it is important to define what I mean when I us the term, especially for a journalism student.

First, what I do not mean.

Picture an audience from any age. Sitting in the theater, nose in a book, ear glued to the radio, eyes riveted to the television set, or the movie screen, or the VR headset. The pinnacle of such an experience is narrative transportation, when an audience member experiences immersion, character identification, a lost sense of time and space, evoked by the power of a well-told narrative arc. That audience member is not what I mean when I say, “storylistener.”

Or picture algorithmic code, watching the numerous digital spaces where we are prompted to post our, “Stories.” It notes the number of likes, comments, shares, use of language, interest of topics, around a single post as well as the accumulation of posts around a single user. The compilation creates an identity to target for more use and for advertising. The pinnacle of such accumulation is to predict future posts’ success, to resurface popular “memories” in the name of attention, and to understand the identity’s wishes and needs. This code is also not what I mean when I say, “storylistener.”

What I do mean begins with how human beings develop an inner identity. How our bodies and mind interact with the many stimuli of the world, especially other people, and from those interactions how we develop a system of organic memories. Memories, at times, look like story arcs, but mostly are a mess of routines, vignettes, images, scraps. When retrieved they are placed into a larger context of place, time, need, and mood, which change regularly. That implies multiple versions of the self, which are in dialogue with each other to create a coherent “I” in the mind(opens in new window). What we remember shapes who we are.

Within the particular contexts of our lives, we construct themes about ourselves. We may see this self as a discrete unit facing the world, or we may see ourselves as part of a larger whole. We may see our stories as redemptive(opens in new window), moving from bad times to good, or we may see them as contaminated, moving from good to bad. How we frame our memories shapes who we are.

Our minds do not begin at neatly congruent sets of episodes, like a long-lasting sitcom or drama. That congruence you sense when you think of yourself is a complex system at work. The network of thoughts, interactions, cultural influences, experiences, identities, and themes, is constantly creating and maintaining a “storied self.”(opens in new window) It is this notion of story that my definition of storylisteners relies upon:

Through presence and practice, someone storylistening might help people find their storied selves, even if they are not natural storytellers. Or help people break out of their instinctual and well-worn scripts if they are. For journalists, storylistening is a way of understanding the "who" of a source (the person behind the opinions, the expertise, the specific experience) rather than just the "what" (their name, their title, their age, their race, etc.)

Strategies for Storylistening

A few years ago, I created a video (QR code below) for a community education project where I went through the basic strategies for storylistening. Almost all of it is still relevant for journalists who are conducting deeper interviews, especially for profiles, news analysis, investigations, etc. Here it is: