Spinning Narrative Gold: Website Storytelling for Social Change

This paper traces an unfolding process of applying principles of organizational storytelling to build an unpublished website. I created this website to tell the story of a small nonprofit seeking to increase and continue its watershed restoration efforts. Storytelling has become a popular messaging...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Potts, Emily
Format: Others
Language:English
Published: Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University 2016
Subjects:
Online Access:https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/3168
https://dc.etsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4578&context=etd
Description
Summary:This paper traces an unfolding process of applying principles of organizational storytelling to build an unpublished website. I created this website to tell the story of a small nonprofit seeking to increase and continue its watershed restoration efforts. Storytelling has become a popular messaging approach within non-profit organizations. I conducted direct interviews with key members of the organization, then set selected excerpts within the context of a written meta-story that conveys information, delivers a call to action, and provides a means for visitor response. Site content corresponds to categories of narrative discourse designed to encourage active response from listeners. The site design employs techniques for capturing and maintaining visitor interaction. The paper includes theoretical discussion of organizational storytelling, non-profit messaging, and website building, as well as basic ideas for future launch and utilization of the website and additional applications of the audio recording files.