Storytelling : La machine à raconter des histoires

by Christian Salmon

Depuis qu'elle existe, l'humanité a su cultiver l'art de raconter des histoires, un art partout au coeur du lien social. Mais depuis les années 1990, aux États-Unis puis en Europe, il a été investi par les logiques de la communication et du capitalisme triomphant, sous l'appellation anodine de « storytelling ». Derrière les campagnes publicitaires, mais aussi dans l'ombre des campagnes électorales victorieuses, de Bush à Sarkozy, se cachent les techniciens sophistiqués du storytelling management ou du digital storytelling, pour mieux formater les esprits des consommateurs et des citoyens.

C'est cet incroyable hold-up sur l'imagination des humains que révèle Christian Salmon dans ce livre, au terme d'une longue enquête consacrée aux applications toujours plus nombreuses du storytelling : le marketing s'appuie plus sur l'histoire des marques que sur leur image, les managers doivent raconter des histoires pour motiver les salariés, les militaires en Irak s'entraînent sur des jeux vidéos conçus à Hollywood et les spins doctor construisent la vie politique comme un récit... Christian Salmon dévoile ici les rouages d'une « machine à raconter » qui remplace le raisonnement rationnel, bien plus efficace que toutes les imageries orwelliennes de la société totalitaire.

Genres: Nonfiction, Journalism, Cultural, Politics, Sociology

247 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Christian Salmon est un écrivain et chercheur français contemporain.

Après avoir été l'assistant de Milan Kundera, il fonde en 1993 le Parlement international des écrivains et le Réseau des villes refuges pour accueillir les écrivains persécutés dans leur pays. En 2007, son livre Storytelling, la machine à fabriquer des histoires et à formater les esprits révèle l'importance des nouveaux usages du récit dans la communication politique, le management et le marketing qu'il décrit comme un « nouvel ordre narratif ». En 2017, il publie un roman, Le Projet Blumkine, fruit de trente années de recherches.

Reviews

[Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll be honest, most of Storytelling: Bewitching the Modern Mind was a 2.5. But then the last chapter and afterword happened, and I had no choice but to bump up my rating. While the book itself is very uneven, Salmon does offer some excellent observations about the role of narrative in different spheres of power: corporate culture, advertising, military training, and politics, to be specific. Basically, Salmon's argument is that storytelling and narrative sequences have infiltrated these facets of the public sphere. As a consequence, public opinion and behavior have become much more emotion-driven. Rather than appealing to logos, the stories we are inundated with attempt to manipulate us by exploiting our collective attraction to stories and acecdotes.

There are two issues that, I feel, undermine Storytelling's overall quality. First of all, this book was originally written in French (why are the French so much smarter than us?!), making this a translation. A translation that feels like it was rushed. That does account for some typos and the occasional clunkiness. The other culprit is structural, however. Each chapter allows Salmon to direct his critical gaze towards a different instance of narrative/storytelling. That's all fine and good, but he doesn't make any attempt to tie the chapters to one another. They feel very isolated, which is a problem when you're trying to offer them up as component pieces of an overarching analysis. I guess Salmon's own story doesn't have very useful segues.

Because the title includes the word "bewitching," I was also expecting Storytelling to talk about how the proliferation of stories might actually make up more resistant to narrative power (over time). I mean, is there a breaking point? A moment in which we become disenchanted with narrative and begin to reject it? Salmon doesn't make any attempt to address how the widespread use of storytelling could actually contribute to a narrative backlash. It's an issue worth considering, however. So, I guess what I'm saying is MORE MAX WEBER!!

I am glad I read this book. Among other things, it introduced me to a lot of unfamiliar writers and theorists who will probably pop up in my own future bibliographies. Storytelling also introduced me to the discipline of narratology, which really is really the perfect revelation for someone with degrees in both English lit. and performance studies. :)

[Olivera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ovo čak i nije loše, računajući kakva sve obavezna literatura za fakultet ume da bude.

[Stacy-Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book I find very interesting to goes on by talking about what is storytelling and how it has been used and to project the mind. One of the lines I got from it is Storytelling has been able to emerge as a technology of communication, control, and power. I think this book is really worth reading because it shows how powerful storytelling can be.

[Szymon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Miejscami dobra, zwłaszcza końcowe rozdziały, ale do połowy nuda i sporo oczywistości (być może nieoczywistych prawie 10 lat temu jak była pisana, ale dziś już banalnych) o tym, że w kapitalizmie i polityce liczy się story bardziej niż fakty czy produkt.

[Joey Schafer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Note: I read the English translation of this work.

Second half of this book was great, but first half progressed very slowly. Glad that I read it though

[Barrioviajero · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un análisis de cómo el storytelling domina hoy el campo de las ideas. Básicamente consiste en la construcción de narrativas, la "narratología", una herramienta que se utiliza en campos como el marketing y la política. Más allá del producto en sí, los consumidores se fijan cada vez más en la narrativa. Este libro está muy bien documentado y ofrece una visión crítica del storytelling; la idea es que "nos venden la moto" a través de historias guays. A partir de ahora me será fácil obsesionarme con el storytelling, ya que todo está lleno de narrativas...

[Marvin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Encore un livre qui aurait pu être condensé en un long article de revue, mais ça semble être devenu courant maintenant. Le dernier chapitre, sur la propagande politique à partir de l'administration Bush fils, mérite d'être lu.

[Lorenzo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Saggio che ho praticamente divorato e studiato in una settimana. La panoramica di Salmon sull'utilizzo delle tecniche storytelling nell'industria, come nella politica e nell'addestramento militare è pressoché esauriente sotto molti punto di vista. Per quanto a volte confusionario nei continui spostamenti da un argomento o da un esempio all'altro - scelta forse forzata dalla vastità del tema - la lettura rimane scorrevole nella sua totalità, grazie anche ad un lessico semplice e ad una terminologia tecnica usata con parsimonia. Un libro consultabile da tutti, anche dai più distanti dagli studi della comunicazione. I capitoli legati all'espansione delle "stories" nella politica americana (vedi Nixon, Reagan, Bush Jr.), nella relativa propaganda e conseguente manipolazione dei media, come l'esempio di Fox News, sono, a mio avviso, i più interessanti in assoluto di tutto il libro.
Un must have per tutti coloro che vogliano esplorare queste moderne applicazioni della narrazione, sempre più presenti nelle nostre vite.

[dv · Rating 3 out of 5]

Testo discreto (buona la pars destruens, un po' meno quella construens) per capire cosa differenzia la nobile e antica arte del "raccontare storie" dall'americana invenzione dello "storytelling" (l'uso dell'inglese non è casuale), imperante da più di dieci anni nel mondo del marketing e, soprattutto, del management e della politica. Come a dire: dal saper raccontare quel che è accaduto per creare senso e coesione, al saper creare storie colme di retorica per influenzare l'opinione. La linea di confine tra queste due pratiche è purtroppo ormai troppo sottile.

[José Antonio Gutiérrez Guevara · Rating 4 out of 5]

El ser humano crea historia, y las historias escriben lo que haremos eventualmente. El storytelling es una ama poderosísima que se puede usar para bien o para mal. Este libro habla de cómo el storytelling ha estado presente en momentos importantes de la humanidad y de como su uso puede FORMATEAR MENTES, y es tan efectivo que me llenó de temor.

[Jake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once you read a few pages of this book, you’ll recognize its primary idea (that storytelling has overtaken contemporary existence) everywhere you look. As Salmon convincingly argues, the problem isn’t that storytelling is bad or false, but that it is being used as a substitute for the truth.

[Vishal Misra · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Storytelling" is a great little polemic. Though, again, it doesn't say much new, it presents its argument cogently, effectively and concisely. The downside is that the work isn't overly original. There are plenty of works on the rise of fiction in our society. Perhaps this explains the enduring existence of magic realism. Plenty of people recognise we live in a fake world.

That said, "Storytelling" is still powerful. Salmon takes as his start point the brand and companies. Marketing and management theories have all ensured that brands no longer market products, they market narratives. Those narratives are only loosely connected to reality, but they have had significant economic effects. They have lionised a fictitious capitalism, and pushed for greater "efficiency" as brands operate behind the smokescreen of the stories they tell us. This was something that Foucault and Barthes predicted, and Salmon credits his debt to these thinkers.

Moving to politics, Salmon shows how "post-truth" politics started with Reagan, and his all-American narrative. There may not have been much substance, but the power of stories to sway politics and therefore people is deeply important. Gone is rhetoric based in fact, and enlightenment principles are replaced with ensuring that emotions are prioritised and heart-strings tugged. A move mastered by Bush Jr, with his now notorious hug of a girl who lost her mother in 9/11. This narrative sent the fee-good vibes that portrayed him as believable.

Salmon also examines the military. Its use of video game simulation technology is controversial enough. However, the helpers in creating such tech, are Hollywood. They pushed to the military the importance of narrative quality to get trainees to suspend disbelief and treat simulations as more than merely games. This has terrible consequences in the sense that we are creating military personnel devoid of empathy to save money in immersive training.

Finally, Salmon looks at propaganda. The rise of 24-hour news, and infotainment. This captures the importance of presenting a cracking and sensational yarn devoid of all analysis. This is the formula cracked by Fox News and demonstrates how easy it is to creat fake news, long before Trump's appropriation of the phrase and the creation of "alternative facts". This also shows how the contempt for the mainstream media came about.

In all, this is a great book, only slightly let down by its naïveté in its veneration of Barack Obama, who sold hope and delivered precious little change. That said, it still analyses effectively what Obama had mastered in the art of telling a political story. This makes a short book worth the read. Salmon is relentless in showing that narrative, narration and fiction govern our lives in almost every sphere, and it is the job of critical thinkers to be aware of this.

[Leif · Rating 4 out of 5]

Salmon is always writing for a different audience than you (as readers familiar with his earlier book on Kate Moss: The Making of an Icon could testify!). Here, he's discussing managerial theories, political journalism, and literary theory's applicability to current epistemological structures - but his audience is a small core for whom off-hand mentions of Baudrillard and Virilio are good "tells" and yet who are also patient and interested enough in the minutae of today's managerial politics to be fascinated by discussions of confidence gurus and office-politics (which, well, Salmon could have / should have had much more of that to please me!). But I digress.

Storytelling is an excellent and coherent study of the ways in which narrative creation has overwhelmed post-WWII politics and commerce through transforming how "reality" is seen and communicated. It's a good use of literary knowledge in the broad world and a convincing argument against any Pollyannas convinced of the uniformly positive value of "stories", at the very least. It is also a hefty slice of evidence for anyone seeking to better understand the world of performative politics today that are totally lifted up from the world of human beings, where facts and evidence are sacrificed to the emotional rejection of what was once called moderity. As gamblers used to say, read 'em and weep.

Interestingly, this was published on the cusp of Obama's eventual victory in the United States. One wonders what Salmon is thinking about in American politics now. Vindication, but the angry kind, I would imagine.

[Raúl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Este libro no es una obra que descubra nuevas tácticas de marketing económico, político y militar, sino simplemente divulga lo que antes otros han teorizado o analizado. Tampoco crea un análisis potente de este fenómeno, aunque quizá por su accesibilidad de lectura, se ha convertido en la referencia popular sobre este fenómeno. Ha envejecido mucho tras fenómenos como los de Trump, Putin, Bolsonaro, etc. Supongo que en las siguientes entregas, Salmon da cuenta de estos fenómenos y de como los neofascismos se posesionan del "storytelling", enriqueciéndolo de una manera brutal.

[Soph Nova · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the general style of this book, but it was a little difficult to decipher what the author’s point was in writing it. Maybe the analysis is now much more widely understood (and from the perspective of the author, the ‘narrative turn’ in politics was certainly not a certainty yet), but it still felt like he was trying to stake out a position without clearly defining his politics for his readers.

[Lebrelilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una crítica al uso del storytelling en la política como metodo de manipulación; una advertencia del uso, cada vez mas extendido, de estas prácticas.

Entretenido y breve, me gustó como muestra la importancia, y el poder, del storytelling y el marketing. No mucha gente lo valora, pero cada vez se usa más... Y ya no solo en las empresas.

[Lucía Díaz · Rating 2 out of 5]

se me ha hecho infumable (y de hecho no he sido capaz de terminarlo sin leer en diagonal). contiene algunas reflexiones interesantes pero repetirlas 15 veces por párrafo les hace un flaco favor, y no por poner más ejemplos se enriquece la idea

[Maddy Ebbrell · Rating 2 out of 5]

What appeared to be a very promising discussion turned into a restrictive and overly complex retelling of American capitalism and politics. Other international examples and simpler conclusions would have made this better.

[gio · Rating 2 out of 5]

allora… avevo dimenticato di recensire questo libro, lo ammetto! ma questo perché è stato così inutile… l’ho letto solo per memare e sperare di capire qualcosa a questo esame che ho dato da frequentante quando chiaramente non lo ero…

vabbè 2 stelle perché l’ho passato kiss kiss

[Charlie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Une introduction un peu trop longue au storytelling. L'auteur se contente de citer des exemples dans différents domaines (com interne/externe en entreprise et politique principalement).

[Eric Ramos · Rating 2 out of 5]

Aburrido, repetitivo, la misma idea con distintos disfraces.Esperaba más análisis del tema, pero no aprecié nada extraordinario.

[Jalen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Revolutionary for me personally

[LRKK · Rating 3 out of 5]

A weird, cranky, meandering, biased, but ultimately important narrative about the rise of narrative.

[Ana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sin comentarios.. la universidad me ha obligado a leérmelo

[Gautier Langevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bonne introduction à l’histoire du storytelling mais surtout de son industrialisation. Analyse de sa mise en pratique dans le monde de l’entreprise, de la politique et de la défense. Très campé à gauche, on sent parfois le jupon dépasser, mais c’est une bonne mise en bouche pour comprendre d’où vient cette praxis qui s’est de plus en plus répandue dans plusieurs sphères de nos vies. Écrit en 2007, on n’y aborde toutefois pas les récentes dérives de la post-vérité, mais on voit bien que dès l’administration Bush Jr. (voire même Reagan et Nixon), la table était mise pour accueillir les faits alternatifs de Trump. Ça m’a donné envie de revoir Wag the Dog.

[Al Bità · Rating 3 out of 5]

This scholarly, but generally quite readable, examination of the concept of storytelling as it has developed over the past 25 years or so, to dominate the social, economic and political landscape of the Western world. Sandwiched between an Introduction and an Afterword we find seven chapters, progressing historically, each dealing with specific aspects of the increasing domination and control of the appeal of narrative to humanity, in order to control it.

It begins, basically, with marketing, as developed in the 1980s and 1990s, moving from product to brand names and logos, people (customers) became consumers, then audiences, and traditional advertising extended to advertising campaigns, which in turn became “narrative sequences”…

The methods thus learned and refined started to become applied to management generally; corporations were inveigled into accepting the marketing approach as beneficial to themselves, and they began to sell images of themselves as if they, too, were a “product” which can be “sold” through the use of beneficent narratives and feel-good stories, regardless as to whether some or all of the actual products did harm or not — indeed, the stories generated actually helped to cover up any number of problems.

The technique then spread successfully to political campaigns, where positive stories of one side of politics could be further inversely enhanced by pushing deliberately “feel-bad” stories about opponents, clouding the issues by promoting suspicion and innuendo rather than facts, fear rather than ideals, and sometimes even downright lies rather than truths. At the moment the process has now taken over the governments themselves, with stories and counter-stories overlapping, contradicting themselves and adding, not only to the confusion, but also to increasing distrust and cynicism in all marketing, management, companies, corporations, political parties, and governments themselves…

At the end of the Introduction, Salmon writes:

“The art of narrative — which, ever since it emerged, has recounted humanity’s experience by shedding light on it —has become, like storytelling, an instrument that allows the state to lie and control public opinion. Behind the brands and the TV series, and in the shadows of victorious election campaigns from Bush to Sarkozy, as well as in those of military campaigns in Iraq and elsewhere, there are dedicated storytelling technicians. The empire has confiscated narrative. This book tells the incredible story of how it has hijacked the imaginary.”

This book sets out these developments, as selected by Salmon, in a way which smacks of intelligent objectivity. Whether any one of us can do anything about it is another matter altogether. After reading this book, one can certainly not claim ignorance.

[Terry Clague · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting, well-written (and/or translated) critical analysis of the growth of "storytelling".

The book scares reader by exposing the "storytelling technicians" behind victorious election campaigns (of Obama, Bush, Reagan and Sarkozy), brands and management speak (nicely citing several Routledge authors in the process of the latter). A good example of this is offered in an exposition of how a US supreme court judge cited the case of a fictional TV series as a justification for torture: "The fact that an eminent judge sitting in the Supreme Court - the institution which, in theory, guarantees that the laws and actions of the executive are constitutional - can claim to use a TV series as an argument to justify the validity of acts of torture that are illegal under international law... demonstrates how far political life has degenerated".

Another anecdote portrays a senior aide to the last US president write off a piece of investigative journalism as having originated in the "reality-based community".

Highly recommended.

[Lisa Orki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nous nous savions manipulés par les médias. Ce livre met en exergue la différence entre narration et information. Il relate comment le storytelling, méthode de marketin, a envahi d'autres pan de notre société, notamment la politique. Les méthodes de communication ne sont plus basées sur des faits mais sur des histoires, misent en scène avec soin. Inquiétant, la relation entre Hollywood, le Pentagone et la Maison-Blanche. Mais aussi, chez nous, les campagnes visuelles de l'UDC ou les interventions lors de débats publics visant à manipuler l'électorat pour l'amener dans son propre camp. La stabilité, la sécurité n'est nullement souhaitée car certainement, ce parti perdrait son électorat. Un très très bon livre pour prendre du recul.

[Alfredo Vazquez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Flojito, flojito. Parte de la premisa de que el cerebro humano adora las historias y busca de forma incansable dar sentido a lo que acontece. Para lograrlo imagina o inventa aquello que falta para crear una historia que tenga sentido. Las buenas historias nos ayudan a entender el mundo, y no diferenciamos bien una historia veraz de una falsa. La tesis del libro es ésta: el storytelling es una herramienta que aprovecha este comportamiento tan humano para manipular sentimientos y generar corrientes de opinión. Así que cuidado con las historias que recibes... En mi opinión, las primeras 50 páginas sirven para entender esto. El resto son ejemplos de uso en entornos políticos, empresariales, publicitarios, militar, etc. bastante repetitivos

[Annabelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tellement à la mode que ça en devient navrant. Récurrant chez F. Taddéi notamment.

Il aurait été interessant que les journalistes fassent la propre auto-critique de leurs pratiques d'écriture à partir de cet argumentaire qui vise à prouver la nouvelle toute-puissance d'un processus narratif basé sur la multiplication de "séquences" (CF Henri G., conseiller spécial) et d'anecdotes.

L'argumentation marche mieux dans le monde de l'entreprise que dans la politique, à mon avis.