The rationale for the project is to articulate how and why narrative has become a defining form of well-being and societal participation, to chart the risks involved in this development, and to suggest ways in which narrative scholars can contribute to a critical understanding of the power and dangers of narrative. The project is firmly interdisciplinary and is seen through in close collaboration with international research centres on narrative studies and professionals from various fields, such as journalism, healthcare and education.
Researchers: Maria Mäkelä (PhD, Docent, project leader), Laura Karttunen (PhD), Juha Raipola (PhD), Samuli Björninen (PhD), Tytti Rantanen (MA), Matias Nurminen (MA)
Background
We decided to crowdsource a pool of "dangerous narratives" by publishing an open call on Facebook in January 2017. Our followers have the option of blowing the whistle on dubious, unnecessary or amusing uses of narrative in media and the social sphere. The volume of the cases reported has wildly exceeded our expectations, and the corpus they form presents the positive problem of being usable as data. It enables us to observe the kinds of narrative forms that draw the attention of social media users, study the notions of narrative or narrativity that inform their reports, and determine the professional contexts in which the issues seem the most pertinent. We analyze selected cases on our Facebook page. We archive all cases, along with all analyses of them, whether by our followers or ourselves.
Funding source
Koneen Säätiö
Contact persons
Maria Mäkelä
PhD, Docent
maria.makela [at] tuni.fi
+358 40 832 5635