Digital and Organizational Storytelling

This course builds understanding and skill in the type of storytelling that influences, informs, persuades, and convinces. Developing the ability to craft compelling narrative for target audiences across a range of documents is critical in the competitive world of professional communications. This includes the appropriate use of storytelling and narrative elements in writing for digital media and promotional copy (such as advertising and public relations pieces) as well as traditional corporate documentation (such as annual reports, policy guides, and dynamic stakeholder presentations). Using the literature of structural analysis, students will explore literary, corporate, and historic examples in contexts ranging from for-profit and nonprofits businesses, educational institutions, activist movements, and political organizations. In assignments focused on writing, revision, and critical reflection, students in this course learn to identify, craft, and strategically employ storytelling and narrative elements in their professional writing practices. Leveraging demographic and psychographic research techniques to understand target audiences¿ needs and communication habits, students will engage proven methods of effective storytelling and narrative development to captivate and inform specific target audiences. Students will evaluate ways to ethically align the needs of their target audiences to best match the goals of their organizations. Finally, students will be able to clearly articulate the ways in which storytelling and narrative elements make digital communication strategies more memorable and effective.