Story Sourcing
"Everyone has interesting stories, but they are like treasures
that need to be skillfully discovered."
Story Sourcing is our semi-formal formative research process that uses journalistic techniques to gather stories directly from the target audience.
The output of Story Sourcing is local stories and anecdotes from daily life at home, at work, and within a community.
These stories become the raw material for Social and Behavior Change (SBC) media campaigns and the inspiration for the writing and design of compelling and hopefully effective interventions, whatever form that takes, be it a radio show, a web series or TV show, poster campaign, PSAs, etc (here's how we used Story Sourcing for a USAID project).
The power of stories and why they are a perfect vehicle for behavior change:
1. It’s human nature to see the world in story form
2. Stories trigger emotion and empathy, which is turn primes us to hear a message
3. Stories transport us into a new world where anything is possible
4. Stories introduce identifiable characters we can observe practicing certain behaviors.
5. Stories are fundamentally about change. Something at the beginning triggers a character’s journey, and through that journey the character changes.
Here's how we talk about Story Sourcing and why it's an important step of building a behavior change program:
