Stories have always shaped how we see the world —
guiding belief, behavior, and culture.
From folklore to film to digital media,
narrative is never neutral.
It frames, persuades, and carries consequence.
This work explores what happens when those processes become visible —
when audiences move from interpreting stories
to entering, navigating, and co-creating them.
This research examines how meaning is constructed, experienced, and shaped.
It traces a shift in how rhetoric operates:
Meaning is not delivered.
It emerges — assembled through association, context, and interpretation.
"Association persuades by activating instincts that operate below the level of conscious reason. It is the ur-argument because it sidesteps logic altogether."
— Naming Neda, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 2013Stories do not simply reflect culture.
They reshape how we understand ourselves — and who we believe we can become.
Narratives carry consequence.
To represent is to frame — and sometimes, to expose.
At this point, something shifts.
If meaning is constructed,
and identity is shaped,
and representation carries consequence —
then storytelling is no longer just expression.
It becomes design.
Learning shifts when students are no longer passive recipients,
but active participants in constructing knowledge.
Stories become environments.
They are no longer followed — they are entered.
"Learning to think like a web designer means shifting from pilot to planner, stepping out of the driver's seat and creating an array of potential pathways."
— Designing Journalists, Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, 2018Narrative becomes shared.
Understanding emerges through collaboration, perspective, and empathy.
"The empathy paradox is the tendency of otherwise well-meaning creatives to resist writing across difference to avoid causing offense. Left unchecked, this tendency can foster cultural isolationism and result in the production of sterile and homogenous art."
— Allies in Action, Media Practice & Education, 2025Stories have always shaped how we see the world.
This work asks:
what happens when we begin to shape
how people move through them.