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Chapter 20: The Narrative Paradigm
Chapter 20
The Narrative Paradigm
Chapter Outline
I. Introduction
• The Narrative Paradigm promotes the belief that humans are storytellers and that values,
emotions, and aesthetic considerations ground people’s beliefs and behaviors.
o People are more persuaded by a good story than by a good argument.
• Researchers (e.g., Ramsey, Venette, and Rabalais, 2011) have examined what they call
“narrative malleability” of constructs observing that people’s minds can be changed about
represents a universal medium of human consciousness” (p. 90).
o Kirsten Theye (2008) agrees, arguing that “narratives are crucial in human
communication as a way of explaining the world” (p. 163).
• Fisher calls his approach a paradigm rather than a theory. Fisher uses that term to signal the
breadth of his vision because a paradigm is considered broader than a theory.
o Fisher states that his use of the term paradigm refers to an effort to formalize and
• Aristotle and Plato distinguished between logos as reason and mythos as story and
emotion. The concept of rhetoric fell somewhere between the elevated logic of logos and
the inferior status of poetics or mythos.
o According to Aristotle, some discourse is superior to others by virtue of its
philosophy and science privilege a formal system of logic that continues to leave poetics or
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rhetoric in a devalued position.
o The mind-set, employed by many scholars, that regards logical thinking as primary is
what Fisher calls the rational world paradigm.
• Fisher argues that “acceptance of the narrative paradigm shifts the controversy from a
focus on who ‘owns’ logos to a focus on what specific instances of discourse, regardless of
form, provide the most trustworthy, reliable, and desirable guides to belief and to behavior,
and under what conditions” (1987, p. 6).
• Fisher also argues that the Narrative Paradigm accomplishes this shift through recognizing
in the following ways:
o “Some discourse is more veracious, reliable, and trustworthy in respect to
endeavors because all arguments include “ideas that cannot be verified or proved in
any absolute way. Such ideas arise in metaphor, values, gestures, and so on” (1987,
p. 19).
II. Assumptions of the Narrative Paradigm
• First, the Narrative Paradigm assumes that the essential nature of humans is rooted in story
and storytelling.
o Stories persuade, move, and form the basis for people’s beliefs and actions.
o Fisher also believes in this first assumption because he observes that narrative is
universal—found in all cultures and time periods.
o Fisher was influenced in his approach by reading moral theory espoused by Alasdair
MacIntyre (1987). MacIntyre observes that “man [sic] is in his actions and practice,
as well as in his fictions, essentially a story-telling animal” (p. 201).
• The second assumption of the Narrative Paradigm asserts that people make decisions about
which stories to accept and which to reject on the basis of what makes sense to them, or
good reasons.
democratic than formal logic.
▪ Formal logic calls for an elite trained in the complexities of the logical system
the Narrative Paradigm calls on the practical wisdom that everyone possesses.
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• The theory’s third assumption deals with what specifically influences people’s choices and
provides good reasons for them.
o The Narrative Paradigm suggests that soundness is not the only way to evaluate good
reasons.
o People are influenced by the context in which they are embedded.
• The fourth assumption forms a core issue of the narrative approach.
o It asserts that people believe stories insofar as the stories seem internally consistent
and truthful.
• Finally, Fisher’s perspective is based on the assumption that the world is a set of stories,
and as people choose among them, they experience life differently, allowing them to
recreate their lives.
o The Narrative Paradigm contrasts with the rational world paradigm, which tends to
see the world as less transient and shifting and which discovers truth through rational
analysis, not through narrative logic’s emotional responses to compelling stories.
III. Key Concepts in the Narrative Approach
A. Narration
• Narration is often thought of simply as a story, but for Fisher, narration is much more
than a plotted story with a beginning, middle, and end.
o In Fisher’s perspective, narration includes any verbal or nonverbal account with a
sequence of events to which listeners assign a meaning.
o Fisher’s definition is extremely broad and parallels what many people think of as
communication itself. This, of course, is Fisher’s point: All communication is
narrative.
B. Narrative Rationality
• Narrative rationality provides individuals with a means for judging narratives that is
quite different from the traditional methods found in the rational world paradigm.
• Narrative rationality, in contrast to traditional logic, operates on the basis of two
different principles: coherence and fidelity.
o Coherence refers to the internal consistency of a narrative.
▪ Narratives possess coherence when all the pieces of the story are present and
that the storyteller has not left out important details or contradicted elements
of the story in any way.
▪ Coherence is based on three specific types of consistency: structural
coherence, material coherence, and characterological coherence.
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❖ The type of consistency Fisher calls structural coherence rests on the
degree to which the elements of the story flow smoothly.
❖ Material coherence refers to the degree of congruence between one
story and other stories that seem related to it.
❖ Characterological coherence refers to the believability of the
characters in the story.
o The other critical standard for assessing narrative rationality is fidelity, or the
truthfulness or reliability of the story.
▪ Stories with fidelity ring true to a listener.
❖ Related to Fisher’s notion of fidelity is the primary method that he
proposes for assessing narrative fidelity: the logic of good reasons
(Koenig Kellas, 2015).
❖ The logic of good reasons presents a listener with a set of values that
follows:
▪ Are the statements that claim to be factual in the narrative really factual?
▪ Have any relevant facts been omitted from the narrative or distorted in its
telling?
▪ What are the patterns of reasoning that exist in the narrative?
▪ How relevant are the arguments in the story to any decision the listener may
make?
▪ How well does the narrative address the important and significant issues of
this case?
o To transform this into a logic of good reasons, there are five more questions that
introduce the concept of values into the process of assessing practical knowledge.
These questions are as follows:
▪ What are the implicit and explicit values contained in the narrative?
▪ Are the values appropriate to the decision that is relevant to the narrative?
▪ What would be the effects of adhering to the values embedded in the
narrative?
▪ Are the values confirmed or validated in lived experience?
▪ Are the values of the narrative the basis for ideal human conduct?
IV. Integration, Critique, and Closing
A. Scope
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• The critique that the Narrative Paradigm is too broad mainly focuses on Fisher’s claim
that all communication is narrative.
• Researchers object to that claim for two reasons: First, some critics have questioned the
utility of a definition that includes everything. How meaningful is the definition of
narrative if it means all communication behavior?
o Some researchers suggest that some forms of communication are not narrative in
the way that Fisher maintains. According to Rowland, science fiction and fantasy
do not conform to most people’s values.
o According to Rowland, science fiction and fantasy do not conform to most
people’s values. Rather, these genres often challenge existing values.
o Rowland also questions the utility of considering a novel and a political pamphlet
both as narratives as Fisher does.
▪ Although both tell stories about the repressive character of the former Soviet
system, they do so in such different ways that Rowland believes it does a
B. Logical Consistency
• The Narrative Paradigm has been faulted for failing to be consistent with some of the
claims that Fisher makes about it.
o Rowland (1987) finds that the narrative approach does not actually provide a more
democratic structure compared with the hierarchical system espoused by the
argues that “there is nothing inherent in storytelling that guarantees that the elites
will not control a society” (p. 272).
C. Utility
• The Narrative Paradigm has elicited both criticism and praise with respect to its
usefulness.
o William Kirkwood (1992) observes that Fisher’s logic of good reasons focuses on
prevailing values and fails to account for the ways in which stories can promote
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social change.
o Kirsten Theye (2008) argues that her analysis of Vice President Dick Cheney’s
apologies, shows that Fisher’s distinction between narrative coherence and
narrative fidelity is not useful. She states that it’s impossible to separate the two.
D. Heurism
• Despite criticisms, which primarily urge refinements of the theory, not its abandonment,
o Fisher has provided a new paradigm for understanding human nature, squarely
located in the symbolic realm of communication.
Classroom Activities
1. Narrative Versus Logical Reasoning
Objective: To provide students with an opportunity to create and evaluate narratives and
logical arguments
Materials: None
Directions:
a. Divide the class into small groups.
b. Have each group divide into two, with half of the group creating narratives and the
other half creating logical arguments supporting the following statement: Gun control
will decrease the murder rate in the United States. (You can also suggest a statement
of your choice.)
c. Have the groups share their narratives and logical arguments with each other and
2. Media Narratives
Objective: To have students identify media narratives or the ways in which the media
frame an issue
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Materials: Newspaper and magazine articles focusing on a recent event
Directions:
a. Divide the class into small groups.
b. Provide the groups with newspaper and magazine articles, and have them identify the
narratives and narrative themes.
• What headlines are used to frame the event?
3. Developing Personal Narratives
Objective: To give students the opportunity to begin to create and identify their own
personal narratives
Materials: None
Directions:
a. Ask each student to construct a personal narrative about one of the following topics:
• Education
• Communication
• Friendship
• Love
b. Ask students to share their narratives with the class.