DARPA & Storytelling
Stories exert a powerful influence on human thoughts and behavior. They consolidate
memory, shape emotions, cue heuristics and biases in judgment, influence in-group/out-group distinctions, and may affect the fundamental contents of personal identity.
Yes, yes, stories are touchy feely but important, yes.
It comes as no surprise that these influences make stories highly relevant to vexing security challenges such as radicalization, violent social mobilization, insurgency and terrorism, and conflict prevention and resolution. Therefore, understanding the role stories play in a security context is a matter of great import and some urgency.
Wait, WHAT. Now you have my attention.
Ascertaining exactly what function stories enact, and by what mechanisms they do so, is a necessity if we are to effectively analyze the security phenomena shaped by stories. Doing this in a scientifically respectable manner requires a working theory of narratives, an understanding of what role narratives play in security contexts, and examination of how to best analyze stories—decomposing them and their psychological impact systematically.
If you skipped that paragraph, here's the important part:
To encourage and stimulate discussion and research on these issues, the Defense Sciences Office (DSO) of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is hosting a workshop, Stories, Neuroscience and Experimental Technologies (STORyNET): Analysis and Decomposition of Narratives in Security Contexts.
OK, mind blown. That was DARPA, the R&D wing of the US Department of Defense, announcing a conference on STORYTELLING. Kudos to DARPA for pushing the envelope not just in the telekinetic monkey department, but in bringing in "soft" factors like how narratives form and stick. It's about time we actually had some new thinking about how hearts and minds are actually won.
via Bruce Sterling at wired.com
And here's the conference agenda:
