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Rethinking narrative sensemaking: In/Congruity and the production of precarious storied orders.

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Title: Rethinking narrative sensemaking: In/Congruity and the production of precarious storied orders.
Authors: Wolfe, Anna Wiederhold (AUTHOR), Black, Laura (AUTHOR), Woody Collins, Jennifer (AUTHOR), Kay, Carson S. (AUTHOR), Han, Soo-Hye (AUTHOR), Williams, Caitlin (AUTHOR), Richards, Robert C. (AUTHOR)
Source: Communication Monographs. Dec2025, Vol. 92 Issue 4, p705-727. 23p.
Subjects: NARRATIVES, SENSEMAKING theory (Communication), HEALTH care industry personnel, STORYTELLING, COVID-19 pandemic, SOCIAL order, DIALOGUE analysis
Abstract: This study extends theorizing on narrative sensemaking through a qualitative analysis of online dialogues for healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that sensegiving and sense-taking processes between storytellers and storywitnessess produce stories as paradoxical artifacts of sensemaking, fixing interpretations of equivocal circumstances yet composed of multiple meanings. Rather than resolving tensions between order and disorder, stories hold these opposites together to imply imperfect linkages across space-time (spatiotemporal in/congruity) and to facilitate imperfect identification with characters and storytellers (positional in/congruity). The very act of storytelling in this context indicates perceived disorder, as occasions for telling emerge out of multiple possible interpretations. This study demonstrates how narrative in/congruity produces precarious storied order(s) amid the always present multiplicity of meanings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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Abstract:This study extends theorizing on narrative sensemaking through a qualitative analysis of online dialogues for healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that sensegiving and sense-taking processes between storytellers and storywitnessess produce stories as paradoxical artifacts of sensemaking, fixing interpretations of equivocal circumstances yet composed of multiple meanings. Rather than resolving tensions between order and disorder, stories hold these opposites together to imply imperfect linkages across space-time (spatiotemporal in/congruity) and to facilitate imperfect identification with characters and storytellers (positional in/congruity). The very act of storytelling in this context indicates perceived disorder, as occasions for telling emerge out of multiple possible interpretations. This study demonstrates how narrative in/congruity produces precarious storied order(s) amid the always present multiplicity of meanings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
ISSN:03637751
DOI:10.1080/03637751.2025.2467696