By Matt Sheehan and Annie Neimand Narratives clearly have the power to persuade and impact the attitudes, beliefs, and actions of audiences.¹ However, narratives as tools aren’t neutral. …

with Ann Christiano and Annie Neimand Verisimilitude (n.) The appearance of being true or real - Oxford dictionary In the opening scene of “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Mississippi,” we watch Frances McDormand’s character as she backs up her station wagon to stare at three long-unused billboards along a remote country…

Any discussion of story building starts — logically — with the structure that defines what a story is, and what it is not. As many organizations have embraced the importance of storytelling, the term “story” often gets used when instead we are talking about an organization’s marketing message or a…

By Ann Christiano, Annie Neimand and Matt Sheehan For many communicators — particularly those of us who work to inform or persuade — we believe the focus of our stories boils down to one thing: the sharing of fact. However, research has shown that the exchange of pure information or…

“In contrast to our vast knowledge of how science and logical reasoning proceed, we know precious little in any formal sense about how to make good stories.” — Jerome Bruner, psychologist — In October 2016, members of the faculty and staff at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications attempted to begin to answer the charge by psychologist Jerome Bruner to further develop what we know of the scholarship in what makes stories effective. …

As the spring 2017 semester here at UF J-School comes to a close, I was inspired by the self-reflection of students in my Innovative Storytelling class. This semester we had UF students in journalism, telecommunications, advertising, sociology and political science come together to learn a framework for intrepreneurship and innovation…

Why We Should be Ready to Play with Goliath and Why They Need to Listen to David — Like many folks focused on what’s happening in digital media, I was half paying attention to the Apple keynote launching its world-wide developers conference. It was proceeding as expected, with updates to iOS and launch of another version OS X, the desktop operating system. And the much-anticipated launch of Apple…

Why we’re examining many of the things we’ve spent the last 18 months building in our newsroom. Follow along as we chronicle lessons from a small-market station group transitioning to a contemporary media organization. Early days (circa 2013) of the Innovation News Center When the project that became the Innovation…

Read ‘Breaking News: Why we’re examining many of the things we’ve spent the last 18 months building in our newsroom’ What is Project Allotrope? The Innovation News Center is undertaking a strategic vision process as we re-orient from a primary focus on simply feeding the heritage, terrestrial broadcast properties to becoming a multi-platform, multi-brand…