The art of storytelling: against the instrumentalisation of stories as information sources in climate communication

Abstract

Storytelling is an important tool of public engagement for researchers, not least for climate scholars. However, a problem arises when stories are treated instrumentally as means of delivering specific messages and as information sources. In particular, controlled experiments measuring the impact of stories on readers may misrepresent how stories work in practice. In this article, we shift perspective and re-emphasise the complexity of storytelling by analyzing the role of stories in three “climate fiction” novels: Sands of Sarasvati by Risto Isomäki, Green Earth by Kim Stanley Robinson and Tentacle by Rita Indiana. We highlight four underrepresented perspectives on storytelling: (1) stories may be used as time-resistant sources of scientific evidence; (2) stories may provide moral guidance; (3) stories have the ability to make connections, organizing events and agencies; and (4) stories afford storytellers agency to act on climate change. We thus conclude that efforts to evaluate the impact of stories require an understanding of how stories function in specific works of art.