Part 7 of 8: Storytelling, Participation, and Community-Building in Local Government Social Media

Local governments communicate facts, but they also communicate meaning. Increasingly, research suggests that stories—not isolated pieces of information—are how residents make sense of institutions, particularly in moments of uncertainty or collective stress. Storytelling, when done carefully, can humanize government, foster belonging, and support resilience. When done poorly, it can feel promotional, exclusionary, or manipulative.

Understanding storytelling as a form of public communication requires situating it within the ethical and institutional constraints that distinguish government from other storytellers.

Why Stories Matter More Than Facts Alone

A substantial literature in communication and psychology shows that people process stories differently from factual statements. Narratives organize information temporally and causally, helping audiences integrate new information with prior beliefs and lived experience. Storytelling on social media facilitates deeper cognitive and emotional processing than fact-based messaging alone, particularly during periods of crisis.

For local governments, this matters because many public issues—public health, infrastructure, emergency response—are complex and emotionally charged. Facts are necessary, but they are rarely sufficient. Stories provide context, illustrate consequences, and connect abstract policies to everyday life.

At the same time, storytelling in government differs fundamentally from storytelling in journalism, activism, or marketing. Public institutions cannot simply adopt narrative techniques without considering norms of neutrality, inclusiveness, and accountability.

Humanizing Institutions Without Personalizing Authority

One of the most consistent findings in the literature is that storytelling humanizes institutions. Highlighting residents, frontline workers, or community initiatives can make government feel more accessible and relatable.

However, there is an important distinction between humanizing institutions and personalizing authority. The former builds connection; the latter risks centering power in individuals rather than roles or processes.

Research cautions that government storytelling should avoid hero narratives that elevate specific officials or departments at the expense of institutional transparency. Instead, effective storytelling emphasizes collective effort, shared challenges, and distributed responsibility.

This aligns with broader findings discussed earlier in this series regarding emotional tone and visual symbolism: affective cues are powerful, but they must be aligned with institutional purpose.

Participatory Storytelling and Collective Sense-Making

Recent research places particular emphasis on participatory storytelling, in which residents are not merely audiences but contributors. Hou (2025) shows that inviting community voices into storytelling processes supports collective sense-making and strengthens social ties, especially during crises.

Participatory storytelling differs from promotional storytelling in important ways. Rather than highlighting success alone, it often acknowledges uncertainty, disagreement, and adaptation. This openness can enhance credibility by signaling that government is listening as well as speaking.

However, participation introduces new challenges. Inviting stories also invites contestation. Governments must balance openness with moderation, representation, and ethical responsibility—decisions that cannot be resolved by narrative enthusiasm alone.

Storytelling, Emotion, and Trust

Storytelling operates at the intersection of emotion and symbolism. Narratives often rely on emotional cues to engage attention and visuals to anchor meaning. As we have discussed in prior posts in this series, both emotion and visuals can increase engagement and perceived trust independently of informational content.

This convergence heightens both opportunity and risk. Stories can foster belonging and resilience, but they can also generate undue trust if narrative coherence substitutes for evidentiary clarity. A compelling story does not guarantee completeness or accuracy.

From a research perspective, this reinforces the need to treat storytelling as a design choice with ethical implications, not a neutral communication technique.

Local Context and Narrative Authenticity

One advantage local governments possess is contextual specificity. Stories grounded in recognizable places, shared experiences, and local voices are more likely to resonate authentically than abstract narratives.

Authenticity, however, cannot be manufactured. Research suggests that audiences are sensitive to narrative incongruence—stories that appear performative, selective, or disconnected from lived reality. Over time, such narratives can undermine trust rather than build it.

Effective storytelling therefore depends not only on narrative form, but on institutional alignment. Stories must reflect actual practices, constraints, and values.

Learning from Storytelling Without Copying Stories

As with visuals and emotional tone, practitioners often look to peers for storytelling inspiration. While comparative observation can be valuable, research cautions against narrative imitation.

Stories are context-dependent. A narrative that resonates in one community may feel irrelevant or exclusionary in another. The goal of comparative learning is not to replicate story content, but to understand story function: what kinds of narratives support connection, clarity, or resilience in different settings.

Platforms such as GovFeeds can support this kind of learning by allowing practitioners to examine storytelling patterns across jurisdictions without reducing narratives to templates. Used analytically, such tools complement the research literature by supporting reflective practice rather than replication. When practitioners face questions about whether storytelling is appropriate for government communication, peer-based evidence helps them explain and justify their narrative approach with credibility.

Storytelling as Democratic Practice

Ultimately, storytelling in government is not about persuasion; it is about meaning-making. Stories help residents understand how institutions operate, how decisions are made, and how individual experiences fit within a collective framework.

When aligned with transparency and inclusiveness, storytelling can strengthen democratic capacity by fostering shared understanding and mutual recognition. When misaligned, it risks substituting narrative coherence for accountability.

As social media continues to function as civic infrastructure, storytelling should be approached with the same care as any other foundational communicative practice—guided by evidence, judgment, and context. When grounded in research and peer-based data, storytelling becomes not just a communication choice, but one that practitioners can confidently defend to leadership and stakeholders.