COMMUNICATION AND NARRATIVE

What do you feel about conflict?

What is an argument?

Are they frustrating? Aggravating? Any other words?

Why do you think so?

Let us argue about some things

What did we argue about?

And... how?

Identity

What do you believe in?

Who are you?

How do you feel?

Why?

Objectivity

What do you mean?

What is meaning?

How is meaning produced?

Is meaning relative?

Truth

Is there an objective truth?

Do facts determine the truth?

What are facts?

Cases: "The earth revolves around the sun"

"Magnets and garlic"

Changing Contexts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rokGy0huYEA&t=121s

Think of the last two years

Information overload

Hyper-relevance

Critical intersectionalities

Narrative construction of reality through social media

Market now witnessing entry of new generation of stakeholders

The market is responding... and it needs to respond better!

The Times They Are a-Changin'

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin'
And you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'

The Times They Are a-Changin'

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'

Contexts

Ideas of gender, sexuality, neurodiversity

A modern workplace needs to communicate to its stakeholders

Immense risk in case of wrong communication:

L’Oréal Paris

Like a lot of other brands in June, L’Oréal Paris made a statement about supporting the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of George Floyd’s death, but the brand's past came back to haunt it. Three years ago, the company fired Black transgender model Munroe Bergdorf over a Facebook post that spoke about white supremacy in the wake of the Charlottesville riots. Bergdorf spoke up on Twitter, saying L’Oréal was being hypocritical after the way it treated her. Her words sparked a boycott, with many of Bergdorf’s followers saying they would not purchase the brand again.  

L’Oréal Paris Brand President Delphine Viguier addressed Bergdorf in a statement, hired her to be part of a new U.K. Diversity & Inclusion Advisory Board and made a donation of $50,000 to transgender organization Mermaids and U.K. Black Pride.

Frameworks of Understanding

How to craft your narrative? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Icx7hBWeULM

Narrative Processing

Narrative processing as opposed to analytical processing

Focus on the message, anticipation of the arc of its plot, emotional connect with the characters

Preferences emotional rather than cognitive. As emotional resonance increases, cognitive resistance is diminished (used to combat skepticism of consumers as well as antagonism)

Green and Brock (2002): When people lose themselves in a story, their attitudes and intentions change to reflect that story.

Van Laer, de Ruyter,  Visconti and Wetzels (2014): Narrative transportation occurs when the story receiver experiences a feeling of entering a world evoked by the narrative.

This may happen due to empathy, imagination or immersion

Affect Transfer

Positive/Negative feelings toward a story are transferred to the brand as storyteller

Credible, more persuasive

People are less suspicious when information is presented in the form of a story

A story should put the listener at ease

Parts of a Story

Plot

Characters

Conflict

Message

Structure of Plot: Freytag

Codes and Structures

Often invisible, subliminal effect

​There are arguments all around us

Sometimes, we don't realize it

^That's the best kind

Use codes - visual, verbal, cultural and more

Make a case: persuasion + strategic argumentation

Find your nexus of meaning

Create your web of significance

Untangling

Examining and contrasting perceptual interpretation. As a result, our task is to demystify the translation of interpretation of the meanings and text embedded in literature.

Using the hermeneutic lens, we analyze phenomenon where meanings and interpretations are cleft across media formats spanning diverse and often disjoint business objectives.

Connecting persuasion with data, text, points of view etc.

scientia

potentia
est

Frameworks

Freytag's Pyramid

Monomyth

Tropes

Reconfiguring frameworks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7JATezA1nY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_OtC06ndUE

But...simplistic interpretations are problematic

Formats of Meaning

Intentional: Producer’s intent of meaning. Purposeful constructions meant to carry a particular meaning. Assignment of corporate offices, for example. Speaks of hierarchy.

Referential: Symbolic meaning. Architecture, for example. Relation of texts (office building) to referents (corporate occupants) - possibility that symbolic forms can condition recipient’s (stakeholders, competitor, customer) understanding of the referents that make the relation between power and culture.

Contextual: Structural-symbolic    meaning. Meaning is inseparable from social and historical context of its production and presentation. Organizational story: who is telling it, to whom, in which media etc.

Formats of Meaning

Conventional: To be meaningful, text follow rules or conventions that members of a particular social group tacitly understand. Conventions of encoding and decoding.

Structural: Texts are constructions that display and articulated structure. For example, in an ad for a health drink, a famous sportsperson (Element A) may be placed in the same frame as the product (Element B) while the tagline (Element C) comes on screen. (Compositionality - Semantic Whole = Sum total of Semantic Parts)

Presentation Strategy: Objective

General - Broad overall goal

Action - Break broad goal to action outcomes (specific, measurable, time bound)

Communication Objective: More specific 'As a result of this communication, my audience will...'

Nudge!

Presentation Strategy: Styles

Tell/Sell: Telling as informing and explaining, selling as persuading and advocating.

Goal: Change audience behaviour

When to use: You have information about the audience, you don't need audience input, you want to control the content

Presentation Strategy: Styles

Consult/Join Style: Idea of inquiry, collaborative. Join style is more collaborative

When to use: Insufficient information, needing others' inputs, ideas and opinions, you need to gain buy-in

Market Narrative: Netflix House of Cards and public policy; Tell/training programmes; Sell/presentation to approval committee/advocacy-persuasion; Consult/questionnaire; Join/brainstorming

Credibility and Benefit

Credibility: Initial and Acquired

Rank: Hierarchical Power: Networked Capital: I - Emphasise and A - Associate. Tangible - Economic benefit

(Armed forces; LinkedIn; Art/Media Circuits)

Goodwill: Track Record/Trustworthiness: Sustainable Capital: Symbolic - Deferred benefit. I - Referral; A - Audience benefit WIIFT

(MAGA, Start-up Pitches, Slow burn thriller)

Credibility and Benefit

Expertise: Knowledge Capital: Skill/Ego benefit. Leverage knowledge capital niches when presenting. 

(IIMs, Theory)

Common Ground: Imagined Communities: Bandwagon Benefit. Attractiveness, authenticity, sincerity/ Emphasise attributes that audience finds attractive

(Loreal, Nike, Queervertising)

Audience Strategy

Primary audience: Unknown - demographics, knowledge and beliefs, preferences. Familiar: +likes and dislikes, behaviour, preferred level of detail, challenging or withdrawing tendencies

Key Influencers: Decision makers, opinion leaders, gatekeepers (Market: Gamergate)

Secondary audience

Does the audience communicate with each other?

Audience Strategy

What do they know and expect? (generational, gender, culture, ethnicity, occupation)

Don't be Private Quelch: Share the essential background knowledge. Identify and define the jargon, simplify the information

Deal with mixed background needs: Provide material to noobs, acknowledge experts, aim your message

Consider format expectations

Avoid second language issues: Idioms and metaphors, sarcasm (KFC, chickpeas)

Audience Strategy: Emotions

What are the feeling currently? (Economy, Timing, morale - current affairs)

What are they likely to feel about your message? (pride, hope, anger, fear, anxiety, jealousy, excitement)

High interest level: Get to the point, build a logical argument

Low interest level: Use the consult/join style. Buy in, keep the message short.

Analyse probable bias: Positive or neutral - reinforce

Negative: Problematise (Problem - Solution); Foot in the Door; Anticipate objections

Audience Strategy: Emotions

Desired Action Strategy:

If desired action is hard: Break action down to smallest possible request; make the action easy

Persuade: What's in it for them? - Identify features (facts, data, emotions); apply audience filter; create a benefit statement: Tangible benefit, Career or Task benefit, Ego benefit, personality benefit, group benefit, consistency benefit

Message Structure

Problem/Solution

One sided vs two sided structure: TOS for negative sentiment - addresses concerns, let audience bring alternatives (nudge), you appear more reasonable

Pro/Con vs Con/Pro

Inoculation

Foot in the Door

Door in Face

Audience Memory Curve

Bottom line front up

Direct: Improves comprehension and retention, saves time, focuses on audience, focus on bottom line

Indirect: Gradually reveal your ace. (Use for sensitive messages, low credibility, negatively biased audience, analysis oriented audience, cultural norms)

Repetition, Flagging, Use the unexpected, Visuals

Informative message: Key points, key questions, steps in the process, alternatives

Persuasive message: Recommendations, benefits, solutions

Narrative stickiness

Narrative Persuasion

Foot in the Door: Introduce the presentation through story (narrative processing) to make audience receptive to larger ideas. Principle of consistency

Example: Apple, Mobile Games (hooks)

Narrative Persuasion

Door in the Face: 

Types of Argument

Deontic Logic: The Logic of Moral Discourse

Lying is wrong, therefore, one shouldn’t lie

Kant: You need a ‘desire’ in the argument.

I want to get a job at BCG, therefore I will study hard. If you take away the desire, what remains? Would you still have a good argument? Desire-action consensus.

If you need a desire, you are implying you want to do it - Kant would say you don’t understand what is ‘right’

Types of Argument

Types of Argument

Could there be a possible world where a circle is a square? [Concept of a circle and a square].

Deductive Arguments and Inductive Arguments

If COVID cases rise, classes will continue online.

Deductive arguments give us certainty. Not unconditional certainty. If the premise is true, the conclusion is true.

Certainty conditional upon the truth of the premises and the validity of the argument.  

Types of Argument

Classes are continuing online, therefore COVID cases have increased.

Is there anything wrong with this argument?

Invalid argument - you should find a counterexample, situation where the premise is true, but the conclusion is false. [Online only module, without a pandemic]

Cannot go from the affirmation of the antecedent to the affirmation of the conclusion.

Sufficient condition vs necessary condition

If the premises are true, the conclusion is true

Types of Argument

Inductive Argument: Not certainty but probability (a matter of degree). As opposed to validity from a deductive argument.

All through history, the sun has risen in the morning. Thus, the sun will rise tomorrow - Inductive reasoning. Nature is uniform - but why do you believe that nature will be uniform tomorrow? The future will be like the past because the future has always been like the past? (Hume)

Russell: The chicken - all his life the farmer comes and gives him food. Just one fine morning, the farmer comes and the chicken meets death!

Types of Argument

Argument from Analogy

The Blind Watchmaker - the watch has a maker, therefore the universe has a maker (Dawkins)

If a has a property, and a is like b, then b has that property as well.

Causation brings correlation

Types of Argument

Premise of similarity and argument from causation. Here, we assume that causation brings correlation

For ANY argument, ask:

Are the premises true?

Is the argument valid?

Types of Argument

Reading Descartes, or reading the reportage of COP26, ask these two questions. 

1. Analyze the argument

2. Identify what they are arguing for (the conclusion)

3. What are they using as the reason (the premise)

4. What do you think of the premises? (valid?)

5. If the premises are true, is the conclusion true?

6. At least, if the premises are good enough to believe the conclusion?

If answer to 2 and 3 are NO, then not a good argument :(

Types of Argument

Tautology - Valid, but circular. 

[Dogs bark, therefore dogs bark]

Important in philosophy and science, avoidable in business

(Lucky Strikes)

"Mrs. Thatcher is the best man in the cabinet"

"All swans I have seen are white. Therefore all swans are white."

Context often makes an argument valid.

Types of Argument

Truth Table

If p, then q          If p is true, not p is false

p, ergo q              If p is false, not p is true

Possible worlds and separation

Do not get limited by the text, by a certain world of meaning

World - context, different sectors, industries

Politician: Offer a circular argument, hide the premise!

Types of Argument

Circular arguments can be useful to confuse someone. 

We are rational animals - we detect validity

If we are limited to validity detection, we may get ensnared in a circular argument

(Find out some circular arguments being used in politics!)

Also called 'Begging the Question' - Argument requiring the conclusion to be true.

Petitio principii

Types of Argument

Formal Logic:

Form / Content

Distinguish the form of the argument from the content

Logic should be topic neutral

All men are mortal                                         

Socrates is a man

Ergo, Socrates is mortal

p = q

r = p

Ergo, r = q (This is the form. Content, subject can be anything. )

Structure (Toulmin Method)

Claim - Assertion, Premise

Grounds - Evidence, facts, logic 

Warrant - Implied or explicit, thread between ground and claim

Qualifier - Claim is not universally true

Rebuttal - Hmm, there may be another valid view

Backing - Additional support of warrant

Fine Tune

Avoid generalizations: All dogs bark 

(Can be refuted by an exception - Basenji)

Have a position statement

(demonstrate reasons - revisit initial slides!)

Give your audience an incentive

Persuasion, nudge

Don't say too much

Make your argument agreeable

Examples

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW0xteHHXrY

(La La Land)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDFdroN7d0w

(Marriage Story. TW: Violence)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlSkPA60ujQ

(Social Network)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvX4k_3Cmvs

(Tyrion Lannister)

Examples

Which counter arguments work?

Which side would you want to take?

Anticipation is key, when it comes to counter-arguments

Defensive/offensive < persuasive?

Keep the flow of the argument on your own terms. Lead to questions and counters you know the answers to!

Classical Rhetorical Framework

Exordium: Prep the audience

Narration: Context (anecdotes, stories, appeal to them)

Proposition: Your claim, center piece

Confirmation: Evidence!

Refutation: Counter the counters, anticipate

Peroration: Conclude, convince

Frameworks

DISAGREEMENTS

Play back your understanding of their view: “If I understand you right, you feel that…”

Outline agreements “We’re aligned on much of this. We both think that… and... “

Home in on where the disagreement lies: “The one place we differ is…”

Explain what shapes your point of view “The reason for my perspective is…”