Narrative Theory

According to communication scholar Walter Fisher, humans naturally are storytellers. This view of homo narrans—storytelling humans—fueled narrative theory or what Fisher called the narrative paradigm. From this perspective, narration is seen as a fundamental quality of human nature. In other words, humans “experience and comprehend life as a series of ongoing narratives, as conflicts, characters, beginnings, middles, and ends” (Fisher, 1987, p. 24).

Communication follows story format, with characters engaged in a plot sequence. Further, Fisher asserted that communication is narrative and all people are tellers of stories. Thus, we should regard all communication as story, regardless of its form, because we interpret it and fit it into our life stories. From this vantage point, “there is no genre, including technical communication, that is not an episode in the story of life (a part of the ‘conversation’) and is not itself constituted by logos and mythos” (Fisher, 1985, p. 347).

Essentially, we make sense of our lives by composing stories, woven from discrete experiences into functioning wholes. That is, knowledge is narratively configured, and it is through continuous activities in story making and storytelling that we interpret our experiences and describe them to others. However, because we collaborate with others in co-creation and analysis, narratives do not simply reflect our internal views. Further, the processes of narrative construction and meaning making are not static; rather, several types of information processing and attribution are at work.

In essentially the same way that individuals come to understand and describe themselves to others through their stories, organizations create and recreate narrated identities. Organizations tell stories about who they are, what their work is, who their stakeholders are, and who their enemies are—all of these crafting a particular identity or identities. Blake Ashforth and Fred Mael (1996) suggested that an organization's identity is crafted from “unfolding and stylized narratives about the ‘soul’ or essence of the organization” (p. 21).

Organizational members and public relations practitioners who understand an organization's identity, its publics, its key stakeholders, and the internal and external challenges it faces are in preferred positions to serve as leaders and spokespersons, weaving narrative explanations and responses. That is, recognition of these factors is useful in collaborating with others in the co-creation of meaning.