Humanity has always known how to cultivate the art of storytelling, an art at the heart of social bonds. But since the 1990s, in the United States and then in Europe, it has been taken over by the logics of communication and triumphant capitalism, under the harmless name of "storytelling". Behind advertising campaigns, in the shadow of victorious election campaigns, are hidden the sophisticated technicians of storytelling management or digital storytelling, to better format the minds of consumers and citizens.
It is this incredible hold-up on the imagination that Christian Salmon reveals, at the end of a long survey devoted to the ever-increasing applications of storytelling : marketing relies more on the history of brands than on their image, managers tell stories to motivate employees, the military in Iraq trains on video games designed in Hollywood, and spin doctors build political life like a story... Christian Salmon reveals here the workings of a "storytelling machine" that replaces rational reasoning, far more effective than all the Orwellian imagery of totalitarian society.
