Numbers, navigation, and narratives – digital storytelling in medical communications
4/22/2024
Science and storytelling aren’t often seen as compatible. One is based on cold, hard facts, while the other is synonymous with improvization and theater. However, when done well, storytelling can be an essential tool for medical affairs, bringing data to life and engaging patients and healthcare professionals in novel and more meaningful ways.
Seismic shifts occurred in the pattern of human existence during the Neolithic revolution, whereby larger, permanent settlements and agriculture replaced many hunter-gatherer societies. At this time, the stories told undoubtedly changed, but we continued to tell them as a primary means of knowledge transfer. Over millennia, as societies became more complex and technologically advanced, organized religion took hold, and those stories changed again, but we continued to use storytelling as a principle means of communication.
The human brain has evolved for stories—storytelling effectively populates our cerebral hard drives: we are hardwired to remember stories, not facts.
Scientists embrace storytelling, not only using it to disseminate hard evidence to their audiences but also to make the evidence more likely to change behaviors or current practices. It is therefore not surprising that stories and narratives are gaining more traction in the medical profession. The digital age has presented wave after wave of evolving mediums to tell engaging stories from scientific data, but with so many digital mediums and audience needs to address, the strategy and approach to media needs to be robust and compelling.
Download our latest article to gain insight from our experts on :
- How to create compelling narratives from your insight-led scientific communication strategy
- How to address audience needs and take an engagement approach to storytelling
- Optimizing storytelling for digital media