Communications practice evolves with the media — so when digital media data showed higher audience engagement with stories, storytelling became the new norm. Communication that might have been presented in a statement or report was now expected to be presented in a story, as well.

Narrative communications includes:

• Personal Storytelling: stories about a person’s life that includes events relating to the activities of an organization. The objective is to demonstrate the impact of an organization’s work, or the importance of the issues the organization is working to impact.

• Narrative Change: stories about a person’s life that includes events relating to a social issue that the organization is working to impact. The objective is to change public opinion on the social issue, and it is mostly practiced by nonprofits, social justice and social change organizations.

There is some confusion with terminology — about narrative — used in communications practice. As communicators have turned to narrative to produce more effective stories, they have adopted language from the study of narrative. However, “narrative” in communications practice usually references to “opinion”, rather than the elements of a narrative text. Learn more about terminology differences.