Project (D. Min.)--Iliff School of Theology, 2006. / Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 133-136).

Thesis (M.S.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Marriage and Family Therapy, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 48-53).

This work explores the possibility of Interactive Storytelling being able to mediate meanings of Chinese Characters used in the Japanese language, or kanji, and successful learning foundations of kanji. A great inspiration for this work was Dr. James Heisig and his series of books “Remembering the Kanji”. The advanced learning principles he proposed were used as a foundation to create an interactive storytelling experience prototype to test if students were able to pick up on said learning strategies and also meanings of kanji. Furthermore, to ensure didactical correctness of the software teachers of Japanese and Japanese studies were asked as well to participate in the test phase with the request for didactic feedback. The obtained results showed that learnability was improved, speaking for the future prospects of this project.

This thesis explores the storytelling strategies utilized by Mexican migrant workers and their families. Through the use of autoethnography, I examine how these storytelling strategies are created and how they function. Juxtaposing formal and informal interviews of my immediate family with my own personal narrative, I identify five Mexican storytelling archetypes: la llorona, el machismo, el güero, el patrón, and el indígeno. Using a methodological framework provided Kristin Langellier and Eric Peterson, I analyze how these storytelling strategies are used to sustain cultural norms and create family identity. Finally, I discuss a performance I created titled “30 Days: A Story of Confinement” that staged conceptualizations of these storytelling strategies.

Orientador: Adenil Alfeu Domingos / Banca: Marcos Américo / Banca: Roberto Reis de Oliveira / Resumo: Segundo Salmon (2007, 2008) storytelling é um tipo de discurso que usa da narrativa para persuadir e engajar emocionalmente indivíduos na política, nas empresas e na propaganda e no marketing. Para Nuñez, (2007) o storytelling é atualmente a principal ferramenta de comunicação, a única capaz de atrair nossa atenção em meio a tantas mensagens dispersas. A narrativa também pode aparecer na web como uma forma de seduzir e fidelizar um público. Blogs diários são como um storytelling, em que "blogueiros" relatam suas experiências de vida. Blogs informativos também recorrem à narrativa, que aparece junto a notícias como um discurso atraente. E o que dizer quando a narrativa aparece em um blog de um programa de TV? Seria uma espécie de propaganda? Este trabalho de pesquisa consiste em um estudo de caso sobre o blog Me leva Brasil, de Maurício Kubrusly. Através da observação e interpretação do corpus, pretende-se demonstrar como a narrativa do blog Me leva Brasil configuram um tipo de storytelling que promove na Internet produtos e conteúdos midiáticos da TV, bem como a participação do telespectador. Nesse percurso, são utilizados estudos sobre storytelling e blogs, bem como sobre o Advertainment / Abstract: According to Salmon (2007,2008) storytelling is a kind of speech that uses narrative to emotionally persuade and engage people in politics, business and advertising and marketing. For Nuñez, (2007) storytelling is currently the most important communication tool, and the only able to grab our attention among so many scattered messages. Narrative may also appear on the web as a way to lure and retain an audience. Daily blogs are like storytelling, in which bloggers describe life experiences. Informative blogs also make use of narrative, which appears along with news as an appealing speech. And what about when narrative appears in a TV show blog? Would it be a kind of advertisement? This research consists of a case study of the blog Me leva Brasil, by Maurício Kubrusly. Through observation and interpretation of the corpus, it is intended to demonstrate how the narrative the blog Me Leva Brasil resembles a kind of storytelling that promotes products and TV media content on the Internet, as well as viewer participation. Along the way, studies are used on storytelling and blogs, as well as on Advertainment / Mestre

Languages currently used by planners to conceptualize, document, and present projects lack expansive imagination and polyphonic literacy. Planning demands new languages to address social and environmental challenges within our increasingly cross-cultural urban environments. Although storytelling theory in planning has expanded contemporary understanding of what constitutes method and practice within the discipline of planning, there has been little work to date explicating what poetry offers to planning education and practice. This thesis examines several opportunities and challenges in adopting poetry into contemporary practice in Vancouver, British Columbia using a multi-method approach. Methods include: a literature review on planning projects collaborating with artists; an ethnomethodological analysis of interviews with four Vancouver poets; a constructionist analysis of a planning text and a re/formation experiment with poetry; and finally, autoethnographic 'poetry as inquiry'. Learnings suggest that a critical approach to poetry offers an alternative language to connect to both 'self as planner' and to the multitude of overlapping voices of 'publics' in process, document, and presentation. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

This thesis looks at the stories of second-generation survivors of residential school. Storytelling is the methodology utilized in this research. The practice of Indigenous storytelling is a way to transfer knowledge to the younger generations. It is also a way to ensure history is not lost. Using a storytelling methodology is a healing method for the writer and the storyteller. A storytelling approach to methodology honours the words of the one sharing their story within this thesis. Included is an overview of the oppressive policies that forced Indigenous children to residential schools, how survivors of residential school were impacted with an overview of research on the intergenerational effects. The research identifies how these storytellers were impacted by their parents’ attendance at residential school and the themes are shared. / Graduate

Recent policy analysis has had a growing interest in examining the everyday practices of policy work. Despite this, conceptions of what policy can and should encompass tend to be focused on its tangible outputs and products, in particular the texts and documents of policy and governance. Policy’s legitimacy is commonly considered to rest on its participants’ ability to make rational decisions motivated not by private reasons but by the public good. This has had serious implications for scholars’ ability to discuss the non-purposive, nonverbal and non-rational content in policy work. This thesis presents an ethnographic study of emotion in the context of policy work. Starting from informants’ own understandings of what emotion means in policy and politics, it focuses on a fifteen month period in the policy practices of a Scottish NGO and its stakeholders and participants. From the perspective of a participant observer policy worker, it uses observation, documents, and interviews to explore the way traditionally “rational” models of governance based on apparently objective knowledge and other non-rational, “caring” ways of knowing are brought to bear upon policy work through detailed examination of practice. Analysis of these practices begins by examining the way that informants described the anxieties caused by competing understandings of “good” governance. Emotion and rationality were considered mutually exclusive but equally essential components of policy making. This thesis proposes that the way these anxieties were managed by the Partnership’s policy participants was to split these incommensurable expectations of governance between two self-identifying groups: activists such as community organisers and professionals such as civil servants. Splitting knowledge in this way helped the wider policy making community to maintain their own sense of legitimacy and moral integrity while making use of “dangerous” knowledge.

M.Comm. / The purpose of this study was to investigate whether storytelling can be used as a strategy to uncover organisational culture. This investigation was prompted by a debate between scholars on whether a quantitative or qualitative approach should be adopted to assess culture. Based on Schein’s (2009) perspective on culture assessment a qualitative approach was adopted. Schein suggests that culture is unique and therefore cannot be assessed using a survey as surveys have predefined constructs that may not uncover certain critical cultural elements. The research methodology was informed by the interpretivisim paradigm. Conducted in a Consulting Firm semi-structured interviews were conducted with six senior members in order to gather their stories. For the data analysis and interpretation, thematic analysis was the chosen technique. Here themes were first extracted according to common stories, archetypes and behaviours identified. These were then interpreted for shared underlying assumptions which were uncovered when common behaviours observed could not be explained by espoused values or other artifacts. The interpretation of results uncovered six core underlying assumptions and five secondary underlying assumptions. The core underlying assumptions operate at the deepest level of the organisations unconscious and are “Sales Orientated,” “Dominance,” “Client First,” “Innovation,” “Adaptability and Nimbleness,” and “Individualism.” Secondary underlying assumptions are enablers of the core underlying assumptions and are “Work Centricity,” “Role Variety,” “Opinion Based Reward,” “Technology Consulting Identity” and “Global versus Local Skill.” The outcomes of the interpretation revealed patterns of underlying assumptions that drive organisational behaviour. To conclude, this study has managed to reveal important elements of the Consulting Firms culture and therefore is in support of a qualitative approach to assess culture. There are limitations of the study; most noticeably the limited number of participant’s interviewed. It is therefore recommended that future culture assessments consider storytelling as a strategy to uncover culture but that an increased number of participants are utilised.

M.Com. (Marketing Management) / The marketing research industry is a highly competitive environment with over one hundred marketing research firms competing for business in the South African market. Literature suggests that one of the biggest challenges the industry faces is poor positioning. Marketing research firms are seen as data suppliers rather than business or strategic thought partners. This is mainly the result of marketing research firms traditionally providing masses of data with no or limited insights, practical use and strategic value (also known as actionability of research results). This state of affairs in the industry needs to be addressed, otherwise marketing research firms will become less profitable and effective data / research information suppliers. To warrant future business and increased revenues, marketing research firms need to position themselves as professionals who can deliver actionable research results that assist clients strategically. Literature suggests various methods in which marketing research firms can achieve this; amongst which data visualisation and storytelling are identified as two such methods to deliver actionable research results which impact clients’ business. Therefore, the primary research objective of this study was to uncover the strategic use of data visualisation and storytelling by marketing research firms in quantitative research reports. To address this objective, this study was conducted in two phases, first literature on the topic was presented, followed by an empirical study. The empirical study independently followed an exploratory and descriptive research design where two samples were used. The main study (qualitative phase) sampled individuals, working for South African marketing research firms, who oversee teams who create quantitative research reports by means of indepth interviews; and the small-scale complementary study (quantitative phase) sampled clients of marketing research firms who receive these quantitative reports by means of an computer-administered, Internet-based survey. The studies were conducted sequentially; the small-scale complementary study followed after the main study had been completed. The Morse and Field approach was used to analyse the empirical research results of the main study which indicated that marketing research firms do not claim to have a traditional approach to quantitative reporting; the focus is not on data supply, but rather on providing actionable research results to clients which adds value to their business decision-making. The results also indicate that marketing research firms use storytelling to deliver actionable research so as to increase the strategic value thereof, while data visualisation is not used strategically. The results of the small-scale complementary study indicated that although 62% of clients feel that current quantitative research reports (received from marketing research firms) can be used to make strategic decisions, clients also feel that quantitative research reports need improvement regarding the delivery of strategic and actionable research reports. The exploration of the current quantitative reporting landscape and the evaluation of whether South African marketing research firms strategically use data visualisation and storytelling, have helped in identifying barriers to adoption of these methods and recommended how these could be overcome; it also identified specific measures to bridge the gap between data supply and strategic (actionable) research. The study found that marketing research firms should continue and strengthen their focus on actionable research as client demand therefor will continue; this can be achieved through a number of ways such as by focusing on understanding the client’s business, demonstrating thought leadership, being future focused, strengthening storytelling capabilities and developing / possibly investing in data visualisation capabilities.