The Article is Dead; the Story is King

In his blog Chroma, Dino Demopoulos presents an interesting perspective on technology’s impact on our approach to journalism and, similarly, advertising. Demopoulus discusses how new media is revealing the traditional article – a “discrete, self-contained composition, including whatever context could fit into a paragraph or two, ornamented with photos and graphics” (description borrowed from newsless.org) – as no longer a sufficient “story” in and of itself. The article has become a data point that lives as part of a continuously evolving, bigger picture. Technology is making it possible to present stories as dynamic, alive, and complex as they really are.

Approaches to advertising, Demopoulos argues, should be reconsidered in the same way. There’s no stand-alone story; advertising, like the article, is only part of the larger story (context and the living, breathing brand):

… When thinking about brands and media… we’ll need to make sure that we don’t confuse the article (the advertising) from the story (the context, the interconnected ecosystem of nodes that “bubble up” to a something much bigger). For, as Matt [of Newsless.org] says, somewhat echoing a transmedia vision of what the future might look like: “We’ve been wedging our stories into articles for so long, it can be difficult to separate the two. But a big part of the opportunity before us is to start telling grand, complex and unending stories with tools fit for the task.”

Chroma: Our Old Language