Golden State Today

In a recent episode of Berkeley Talks, Timothy Tangherlini, a professor at UC Berkeley, delved into the impact of storytelling on belief systems across cultures. Episode 213 featured Tangherlini discussing how narratives can justify actions and influence beliefs positively or negatively.

“Stories give a basis and a justification for people to take real life action,” said Tangherlini during an event held in October as part of the Alumni and Parents Weekend at Homecoming. He emphasized that stories could serve as both retrospective and motivating justifications.

Tangherlini, who is also involved with the School of Information and serves as associate director of the Berkeley Institute for Data Science, combines folklore studies with machine learning to analyze storytelling networks. “This is where we start to unravel narrative at internet scale,” he explained. He highlighted how conspiracy theories often link simple threat narratives into complex representations.

The discussion touched upon various conspiracy theories like #stopthesteal and Pizzagate. Tangherlini explored whether storytelling structures could be used to challenge exclusionary ideas and promote inclusivity. “Can we use the structure of the storytelling to … question exclusionary ideas about who belongs and turn them into more inclusive ideas in the storytelling itself?” he asked.

The event took place on October 18, hosted by Berkeley’s Division of Arts and Humanities.