CampusDownWiki CampusDown ↗
English

Storytelling Theory

🎨 Media, Arts & Culture By CampusDown Wiki Editorial Team Last updated
Quick answer: storytelling theory covers how stories are structured and why narratives with characters, conflict and resolution are understood, remembered and found persuasive more readily than lists of facts.
Contents
  1. 1. Narrative structure
  2. 2. Fisher's narrative paradigm
  3. 3. Narrative transportation
  4. 4. Applications
  5. 5. Criticism
  6. 6. References

Narrative structure

  • Aristotle: in the Poetics, plot is the imitation of a complete action with beginning, middle and end, with reversal and recognition.
  • Freytag's pyramid: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and denouement.
  • The hero's journey: Joseph Campbell's departure, initiation and return pattern from The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949).

Fisher's narrative paradigm

Walter Fisher (1984) described humans as storytellers (homo narrans) who judge messages by whether they are good stories. The tests are narrative probability, meaning internal coherence, and narrative fidelity, meaning fit with the audience's experience and values.

Narrative transportation

Green and Brock (2000) showed experimentally that the more readers are transported into a story world, the more they adopt story-consistent beliefs and the less they counter-argue.

Applications

Brands use origin and value stories to build emotional connection, teachers explain concepts through cases, and journalism and public campaigns rely on character-driven narratives.

CampusDown PICKPopular right now

Criticism

Stories simplify complex realities and can bypass fact checking through emotion, so evidence should accompany them.

References

  1. Aristotle. (1996). Poetics (M. Heath, Trans.). Penguin.
  2. Campbell, J. (1949). The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Pantheon Books.
  3. Fisher, W. R. (1984). Narration as a human communication paradigm: The case of public moral argument. Communication Monographs, 51(1), 1-22.
  4. Green, M. C., & Brock, T. C. (2000). The role of transportation in the persuasiveness of public narratives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(5), 701-721.

Reports and materials that use this theory (Korean)

There are no materials dedicated to this theory yet, but you can search related reports in the CampusDown library (Korean).

Find more reports · Search '스토리텔링 이론' on CampusDown →
Color Harmony Theory (Obangsaek and Image Scale)Colour harmony theories: Chevreul's analogous and contrast harmony, Munsell and Ostwald, Moon and Spencer's identity, similarity and contrast, Judd's four principles, Korea's five cardinal colours (obangsaek), and Kobayashi's colour image scale.🎨 Media, Arts & CultureIntercultural Communication TheoriesIntercultural communication theories explained: Hall's high- and low-context cultures, Hofstede's cultural dimensions, Gudykunst's anxiety/uncertainty management, Ting-Toomey's face-negotiation theory and Bennett's model of intercultural sensitivity.🎨 Media, Arts & CultureChicago School Urban EcologyChicago School urban ecology explained: Park, Burgess and McKenzie's human ecology, the concentric zone model and zone in transition, invasion and succession, Wirth's urbanism, Shaw and McKay's social disorganization, later models and criticism.👥 SociologyComplexity TheoryComplexity theory explained: systems of many interacting parts from which hard-to-predict order emerges. Emergence, self-organization, nonlinearity and path dependence, the Santa Fe Institute, Schelling's segregation model, applications in sociology and public administration, and limits.👥 Sociology

You may also like

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)Brown v. Board of Education (1954) summary: the case, Chief Justice Warren's unanimous ruling, why 'separate but equal' fell, and what happened after.⚖️ LawIntestate SuccessionWho inherits when someone dies without a will: how U.S. intestacy statutes rank spouses, children and other relatives, how per stirpes works, and how Korea's Civil Act sets heirs, shares and representation.⚖️ LawThe Rule of LawWhat is the rule of law? Its meaning and history from Magna Carta to United States v. Nixon, Dicey and Fuller's principles, and how it differs from rule by law.⚖️ LawCommon Law vs. Civil LawCommon law vs. civil law: how the two legal families differ on sources of law, precedent, trials and judges, and where Korea's mixed system fits between them.⚖️ Law

This article was last updated on October 15, 2026. It is based on widely recognized original works and textbooks; when citing it in a paper, please check the original sources listed in the references.