Narrative Science

Narrative science is an innovative approach to science communication and practice that foregrounds the role of stories, storytelling, and emotions in the scientific process. The idea that science needs a good story is not new; indeed, many specialists in science communication emphasize the need for scientists to become more adept at using stories to disseminate their work to an increasingly apathetic or resistant public. What is new is the idea that science is storied from the start—that narratives and their corresponding emotions play a significant role in all stages of scientific inquiry, from hypothesis formation through to the communication of results. As such, we can do better than to conceive of story as an “add-on” or container into which scientists must pour their work to make it palatable to broader audiences. Instead, narrative science helps make the narratives and emotions that inform science legible to scientists and identifies the storytelling strategies that best harness those narratives and emotions for particular audiences. 

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Narrative science begins with the idea that narrative—more commonly known as story—is not only a vehicle for sharing scientific knowledge but also a powerful sense-making device. By this we mean that narrative is more than a communicative tool. It is the primary mechanism by which humans think and understand their world, and thus is always present in the observations that we make, the questions that we ask, and the methods by which we go about answering those questions. Humans think in narrative, and those narratives are innately emotional. The primary goal of narrative science is thus the “restorying” of science—the recovery of the narratives and corresponding emotions that inform a specific scientific project—and the development of new stories and emotions to communicate that project to various target audiences. 

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Interested in Narrative Science training?

Contact us at theconfluencelab@gmail.com.