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158 | Digital Media and Storytelling in Higher Education
The following chapters focus on how storytelling and the use of digital tools
can be subordinated to the objectives in different fields of higher education.
The types of digital narratives listed in the second part of the book are
compact verbal, visual or audiovisual (re)presentations with a linear or
branching structure. In higher education, these narratives can be used as
tools for illustration, but their most effective application is when students
themselves create digital narratives. Such work is important not only because
of the experience gained through the use of digital tools and the professionally
relevant content of the created product but also because of the collaboration
and interpersonal communication involved in its production, which also
supports the development of various competencies. Whether students are
creating memes, dashboards, infographics, interactive digital narratives or
digital stories, the process requires them to select, communicate, interpret
and use ICT tools in an appropriate and purposeful way.
CHAPTER 1.
BUSINESS STUDIES
Storytelling techniques are relevant in marketing and market research
contexts on several levels. On the one hand, companies build their brand
from their clients’ product-related narratives, which they use as a basis for
further visual, verbal or audiovisual promotional narratives. In business,
narratives are also used in the development of organizational culture and in
the analysis of macro-level economic processes.
When developing organizational culture, it is important to assess the
experiences and needs of employees through their stories. Musacchio Adorisio
(2009) examined the internal and external narratives that emerged within a
micro-community. The research found that the everyday events which occurred
at the workplace were framed by bank employees in a narrative structure (i.e.,
chronologically and causally). The researcher conducted narrative interviews
with the bank managers (n = 14), recording metacommunicative signs and
collecting data from the local history museum, the bank’s brochures and
its website. A full background narrative of the company emerged from the
data, the story of the acquisition of a family-owned bank, which was further
subdivided into sub-narratives. The local Fargo myth associated with the bank
emerged in the narratives in addition to the clichés regarding big and small
banks, as well as the family stories that shaped the collective memory and
workplace identity of the employees. The researcher also revealed a complex
picture of the logic of bank decision-making and problem-solving, which
was characterized by operationalized cost-effectiveness.
Exploring an organization’s characteristic narratives is a source for image
building and a tool for developing organizational identity. Employee narratives
outline the extent to which they are loyal, their ability to identify with the