Influence and persuasion in storytelling through music

The method of digital storytelling that has shaped my PhD more than any other, is that of the Center for Digital Storytelling (CDS). As you will see for yourself if you click on the link, personal digital stories created at CDS workshops include some form of music as part of the soundtrack. The form the music takes and the prominence in the movie is very individual to each story, but it usually always serves to heighten the emotional essence of the journey that the storyteller is taking us on. I often find I get completely lost in these stories, and have reflected on how much it is the music that’s been responsible for captivating me so deeply.

In the fourth part of the recent BBC documentary “The British Family“, I was very aware of an emotional mood to social arguments being reinforced by changing music. Now I am a big fan of the BBC and implicitly trust any documentary with their badge to convey well-balanced arguments. I also realise that it is bad practice to trust without question. And as Kirsty Young was taking us through a shift in paradigm regarding the place of children in the family in wider British society, I was very aware of a dark, melancholic and slightly discordant soundtrack giving way to something altogether more feel-good; Coldplay if memory serves correctly. As a viewer, I became caught up in the emotional sense that the place of children is so much “better” and “happier” these days*. It also became immediately apparent how the use of music in this case helped me to gloss over issues I might have with this notion and simply accept it.

As a researcher/ interested citizen of the world, of course, I can choose to read more widely about such issues, but what about the proportion of the population who don’t or can’t get onto Google after watching documentaries, or have limited access to verifiable literature? It’s just made me think about how music can heighten influence and persuasion in mass messages, as well as through campaign material that includes digital stories.

I’m not remotely suggesting that information delivered in The British Family documentary is at all misleading, instead I happened to watch it after I had been thinking about the role of music in Digital Storytelling methods. But in cases where we receive information that induces cognitive dissonance, i.e. where two or more pieces of information do not fit together, how do humans resolve this dissonance in decision-making? Festinger developed Cognitive Dissonance Theory in 1957, a well-studied theory in Social Psychology (Hogg & Vaughan, 1998). Hogg & Vaughan describe that “people will try to reduce dissonance by changing one or more of the inconsistent cognitions, by looking for additional evidence to bolster one side or the other” (p180). I wonder if the emotion associated with a musical soundtrack might act as such evidence in a decision-making process.

For several reasons, I have omitted adding a musical accompaniment to the audio tracks in my PhD case studies (primarily time and access to suitable copyright-free tracks). Actually, I think arguments from the participants have been well developed through scripting and reviewing, and fellow participants have shown to change opinions based on new perspectives in some cases, all without additional mood-enhancing music. I wonder now how much stronger an impact these stories might have had as they begin to travel further and reach more people had they incorporated music. I guess that would be another PhD….

Notes:
*I largely agree with the notion that society should be happier and will profit from children taking a far more central role in our family lives. However, placing their needs above my own is discordant with my desire to continue building a career in academia, and as a mother I struggle with this, as previous posts have discussed.

The British Family series is available on iPlayer until the 9th of March 2010. I really enjoyed watching all four episodes.

Reference:
Hogg, M. and Vaughan G. M., 1998 Social Psychology 2nd edition. Hemel Hemstead: Prentice Hall Europe

Advertisement