By Deborah Potter and Annie Lang
Can changing the order of information or adding a simple graphic make a once-confusing story understandable? The answer seems to be yes, based on preliminary results of research conducted at Indiana University.
The research compared two different versions of four complex stories. One story dealt with a squabble over landing rights between two neighboring airports, another with a grand jury hearing about possible influence peddling. We also had reports about an international trade conference and a commission ruling to establish an ethics policy.
All four stories had aired on local stations, which deserve credit for tackling these difficult topics. The stations provided copies to NewsLab for research purposes. The stories they sent us didn’t lack for substance, but two of them were seriously short of video, and another relied almost exclusively on file tape. The result: the stories were not terribly interesting and they were hard to understand.
NewsLab set out to create a second version of each story using the same soundbites from the original version plus some additional video. We deliberately did not spend much time producing new elements, reasoning that it wouldn’t do much good for our research to prove the obvious: that investing a lot more time can make stories more interesting and understandable. Instead, we made subtle changes in each story.
We took the information in the original story and put it in a more linear order, moving relevant background higher up. We reduced the amount of meeting video in one story from 28 seconds down to just six. For another story, we created a simple graphic to establish the relationship between key players. Before the stories were tested, NewsLab also re-voiced the track and shot new standups as needed for each original story, to eliminate the possibility that viewers would prefer one reporter’s work to another and thus bias the results.
The research study involved 45 adults, ranging in age from 26 to over 55, who came to the Indiana University Institute for Communication Research to screen tape and respond to questions about the stories. They watched the stories alone, not in a group. Each participant screened two different original versions and the reworked versions of the other two stories.
Immediately following each story, the participant was asked to rate it on a 10-point scale as to whether the story was informative, believable, interesting, easy to understand, enjoyable, engaging, and important. The results were analyzed by comparing results for all of the reworked versions to results for all of the originals. On every scale, the reworked stories were rated better than the originals. On six of the seven rating scales-all except importance-the difference was statistically significant (p<.01, meaning there is only a one percent chance that the effect is due to coincidence). And the greatest differences were in three areas: viewers found the reworked stories to be much more interesting, far more understandable, and a good deal more informative.
As we analyzed additional data from this study, we learned still more about the effectiveness of the changes we made. These results suggest that it doesn’t take more time or additional resources to create stories that can have a greater impact on viewers. Stories that follow a simple, narrative structure, and that use video to illustrate information-not just to cover the track-can interest viewers and leave them feeling more informed.
References:
1. Annie Lang is director of the Institute for Communication Research at Indiana University.
