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People see the world and convey their perception of it with narratives. In an information system context, stories are told and collected when the systems are developed. Requirements elicitation is largely dependent on communication between systems designers and users. Thus, stories have a significant impact on conceptualizing future users' needs. This paper presents a literature review on how stories and narratives have been considered in central IS literature. Narrative-theoretical parameters are used as a lens to analyze the literature. This shows that explicit discussion is non-existent, and the characteristics are considered partially. The result is a biased and narrow understanding of the informants' needs and wishes. This may be significant in the requirements because narratives are not as simple a form of communication as is usually assumed. It is proposed that better understanding narratives would equip systems analysts with an in-depth understanding about the nuances inherent in communication when communicating with users., Author(s): Pasi Raatikainen, Tampere University, Finland, Samuli Pekkola, University of Jyväskylä, Finland, Maria Mäkelä, Tampere University, Finland INTRODUCTION Stories and narratives are a natural form of human interpretation and communication [...]

Many sociologists have called for analytical rigor in the study of narrative while maintaining that narrative should be viewed as a form of social action. We argue that the narratological "story-discourse" distinction together with "positioning theory" provides a theoretical basis for such rigor. In narratology, "story" denotes the events in the world of the narrative, while "discourse" is the text that communicates them. This distinction helps us see how storytellers take positions on three levels: the "story," the communicative (inter)action ("discourse"), and the level of "norms." The third level derives from Michael Bamberg's positioning theory, which offers a frame of understanding the social situatedness of storytelling. Narratological analysis of linguistically discernible voices on the story and discourse levels offers methodological refinements for analysis, finally allowing for a focus on positioning on the third, normative level. The theoretical and methodological arguments are illustrated through analyses of Finnish politicians' stories.

The article calls for narratives that would accommodate the collision of two complex forms: climate change and social media. Science communication is currently on the lookout for personal stories that make climate change concrete and relatable for both decision-makers and the general public; similarly, climate activism on social media increasingly draws from personal experiences. Yet climate related stories going viral on social media often end up fostering political polarization and stark moral positioning instead of collective climate action. Building on Caroline Levine's work on new formalism, I argue that this problem results from the collision between (1) climate change and (2) social media as complex forms that challenge the centrality of embodied experience and individual agency, and (3) the prototypical experiential story as a non-complex form. I analyze some viral climate change stories and focus particularly on experientiality, easily shareable masterplots, and moral positioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What should we learn from another individual's experience? What kind of narrated experiences become cultural masterplots and genres in different historical contexts? This article introduces an approach to medieval exemplary narratives of conversion that combines narrative theory and comparatist attention to the historical context and forms of narrative experientiality. We take two exempla from the sermon of the feast of the canonization of Saint Birgitta as our test case. The historical specificity of narrative didacticism is further highlighted by comparing medieval exempla with social media-fuelled stories of personal conversion-like transformation that gain representative and normative power in today's narrative environments. Who are the saints and sinners in today's social media didacticism? Our narrative-theoretical and comparative analysis focuses on conversion as a replicable model experience and a prototypical element of a shareable narrative. We also pay attention to the dynamics of narrative authorization in medieval and contemporary narrative environments and sketch an interdisciplinary synthesis of the genre of the exemplum as a narrative form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]