Communication waves
Communication for blood donation
between narrations and innovations
by
Andrea Volterrani
(University of Siena)
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
What are we going to talk about?
● Stereotypes and media narrations
● Media narrations
● Multidimensional imaginary on blood and donation
● Narration and blood donation
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
The problem of three worlds
● Thinking world
● Language world
● Real world
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
Thinking world
Language world
Real world
Idea of chair
Term of
(In english) chair
(In italian)
Sedia
(In french)
Chaise
(other languages)
……
Real chair
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
Thinking world
Language world
Real world
Idea of donation
Term of
(In english)
Donation
(In italian)
Donazione
(In french)
Donation
(other languages)
……
Real ??????????
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
● Stereotypes
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
Different stereotypes…
“…In attending to media accounts and
narratives, viewers, listeners and
readers interpret them in different
ways, depending on who they are,
where they are, and when, in and
across historical time they engage
with texts and images.”
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
● Media
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
narrations
Different narrations…
"The
novel [the narration, nda] puts on stage not only
what it is, but also what it could be and therefore all
possible worlds that continuously graze us and that,
despite everything, we do not see except through the
literary imagination. (…) ' Paradoxically only through
fiction ideas, concepts and categories acquire
concreteness, they become flesh and blood through
literary characters. (….) The novel [narration nda] is a
method of knowledge because it shows us the
interconnection of everyone with everybody, of
everybody with everything "(Turnaturi, 2003: 19-20)
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
Narrations…
What do we communicate?
Symbols
More or less shared meanings
Narrations
Beliefs
Daily examples
In practical terms, we communicate
also through…
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
● Multidimensional imaginary on blood
donation
● Social
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
scapes
Imaginary…
Collective imaginary
The imaginary is that set of stories, symbolic representations, dreams,
fantasies, fears, desires, expectations which help us to understand and
to build the reality we live in.
The imaginary is realer than real
And sometimes“…the imaginary is one of the many realities that we
experiment…”
(Schutz, the structure of the vital worlds)
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
Imaginary…
Who feeds the imaginary?
- Daily life
- Archetypes of our unconsciousness
- Narrations
- Other people
- Myths and legends
- Media
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
Social scapes analysis
Players
People at
the stadium
Staff on the
sideline
(volunteers,
security,
journalists)
Coach
Referee
Coach
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
Game (blood)
Players on
the bench
Different social scapes…
“If for social scapes we both mean a
representation of social needs, individual and
collective patterns, an organization that act
on social needs and the transformations of the
welfare state, an analysis of the solidarity
produced by media, then it’s necessary to
better understand relations between
narrations of territories ,of media and of
single individuals (individuals, groups and
organizations)”
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
Different social scapes…
“Which are the sources that create the social scapes
that need to be explored in order to recreate them?
Narrations of important media in particular the daily
press, fiction and cinema
Novels
life patterns, perceptions , interpretations and in part
also individual imaginaries.
Narrations of organizations that act on territories
(public institutions, companies and non-profit
organizations)
Analyses of stories and experiences of people who
work for the social world
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
Different social scapes…
“Passions, motivations and behaviors can be
understood and can be told through a certain
character. Events, passions, characters are
known to everyone through narrations. All
this can be understood because it can be read
through concepts or anlithycal categories.”
(Turnaturi 2003: 25)
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
● Partecipated social communication on
blood donation
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
Participated social communication on blood donation
Planning
Imaginary on
blood donation1
Planning 1
People 1
Imaginary on
blood donation2
Imaginary on
blood donation3
Planning 2
Planning 3
People 2
Participated social communication on
blood donation
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
People 3
“A journey never ends. Only travellers do. And they can stay alive through
memories and narrations. When the traveller seated on a beach and said”
there’s nothing else to see” he knew it was not true. We need to see what
we didn’t see, to see again what was already seen, to see in spring what
was seen during the summer, to see during the day what was seen at
night. We need to see in a sunny day what was seen in a rainy day, to see
the green harvest, the ripe fruit, the stone that has changed its place, a
new shady place. We should go back to walk in our footsteps again and
to trace new patterns. We need to start over our trip. Always. The
traveller comes back soon.”
J. Saramago, Journey to Portugal
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
Le narrazioni…
“"… We do not know how would be a culture which does not
know anymore what it means to tell a story"
(Paul Ricoeur, Time and story)
“…(If we lost the skills of narrating) we would never be able
to live inside ourselves; life would become a chaos, a big
schizophrenia where the pieces of our existences explode
like a firework, because in order to sort out and understand
who we are, we have to tell our stories…”
(Antonio Tabucchi, Where does the novel go?)
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
Le narrazioni…
“Telling stories means building a network that
allows the subject to see the development of
life over time and therefore, to a certain
extent, to master it"
(P. Jedloswki, common stories)
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
narrations…
Imaginary or reality?
“the narration is in both kingdoms. As it tells a story, creates a world where
the imagination unfolds itself; as it is said by someone to someone else
who listens, taking place in the world of action and relations "
(P. Jedlowski, Common Stories)
“..But this is why we need stories: to multiply life, to put it in connection
with its infinity. They are ships passing through borders… "
(P. Jedloswki, Common stories)
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
narrations…
Role of media
Symbolic mediation
A never-ending work of the nature which transform the natural universe into
a universe of sense.
Narrated worlds are simulations, but simulation is an imaginary experiment
“Each
story is a world that let the imagination in ; symmetrically the
imaginary of everyone nourishes and expands through the exploration of
the Worlds that the stories give us. Diving into a story is entering into a
reality which is parallel to the one we live in: anyway, we do it for the
pleasure of multiplying life “
(P. Jedloswki, common stories)
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
Narrations…
When we dive into a narration we take a trip.
• Travel
• Departure
• Transit
• Arrival
We are in transit, we are on the borders, we are in a
liminal area of our culture, we are into the
imaginary
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
Le narrazioni…
•
Functions of narrations
Community function
(sense of belonging , imagined community)
playful
Identity function
Mnemic function
(link between generations)
Cognitive function
(knowing stories and “other” plots to generalize them)
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
When voluntary work can promote new symbols
and new solidarity stories through social
communication?
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
Which are the important elements to communicate in the voluntary
work of blood donation?
Are there any possible connections?
Which are the opportunities and which are the problems?
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
Some characteristics of voluntary work
-Strong relational trait
-Imagination
-Voluntary work trait
-Listening
-Integrating
-Communicating
-Ethics and responsability
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
Some
Somecharacteristics
characteristicsofofnarrative
narrativecommunication
communication
-Strong relational aspect
-Protagonism
-Innovating trait
-Convergent
-Daily
-Participative
-Generational skip
-Not equal from a symbolic point of view
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
1) Strengthening new characteristics
2) It strongly helps the innovation
3) Including those who are far away (not only in terms of digital
divide, but also to have access to symbolic sources) through the
development of strong participating processes
4) Developing relations between subjects, people, themes and
context
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
Which is the purpose of the voluntary work?
- “Back to the origins” compared to the development of relational
aspect and of people promotion
- Promoting inter-generational and inter-territorial solidarity to fill
symbolic and cultural gaps
- Developing new communicative spaces for people who are at risk
- Building “real” processes of participation
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
«This suggestion is mine; now it’s your turn to find that
excitement you’d feel if creating your heuristics and
changing your image of social world. »
Andrew Abbott, methods of discovery
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
“Experience is never limited, and it is never complete;
it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spiderweb, of the finest silken threads, suspended in the
chamber of consciousness and catching every airborne particle in its tissue. It’s a state of mind and
when the mind is sketchy, it attracts the thinnest
traces of life, changing the most unperceivable
variations of air into big revelations”
Henry James, The art of the novel
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena
“teaching the skills needed to produce contents is more
crucial than ever. Indeed, given the current trend to
duplicate, or even to replace online our social and
political institutions, not doing it would mean
removing power to citizens, "
Sonia Livingstone, Understanding new media
Andrea Volterrani
Docente a contratto
Università di Siena