Feeding the Feed: Ian Schafer for the Future of StoryTelling 2012
457 views · Published 4 October 2012 · 5:31 · Indexed 20 September 2026
Channel: Future of StoryTelling · 2012 · Education
See the full playlist of FoST Films here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLs6Vd3jEmIsv4gOD2VT-t08MkfUZRSuA9&feature=view_all Social media has profoundly changed how people consume content, shifting the focus increasingly away from pages and toward feeds such as Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit. In fact, says advertising executive and social-media marketing innovator Ian Schafer, "consume" is no longer even an apt term for the way stories take root in the individual and collective consciousness nowadays. In an age of micro-content, in which narratives are delivered in smaller and smaller bits, the most successful and influential stories—whether an advertising spot or a Facebook post—are designed less for digestion than for quick and easy sharing: vibrant, picture-driven packets of information that invite surprise and make you want to type, "Hey, check this out." That pleasurable sensation of discovery has its roots not in the classic creative model of slow, writerly production and revision, but in the newsroom model of snooping and scooping. Awakening that sense of discovery is key for journalists and advertisers alike, whose respective professions are merging as never before. In this film, Schafer explores that convergence, and offers firsthand examples from his professional career of an emerging truth: today, the biggest stories are the ones light and nimble enough to travel far and wide across the vast shared communities of social media.
