Digital Storytelling
Digital storytelling is the contemporary practice of narrating personal experiences and stories using new media technologies, including podcasts, videos, blogs, and social networks. This form of storytelling merges traditional narrative techniques with modern digital tools, allowing individuals—regardless of professional storytelling background—to create and share their narratives with larger audiences. The ease of access to digital devices like cameras and voice recorders, along with user-friendly software, has contributed to the proliferation of digital storytelling. Unlike conventional narratives, digital stories often employ non-linear structures and shorter formats, utilizing multimedia elements such as images, music, and animations to enhance engagement. This interactive aspect not only captivates diverse audiences but also makes digital storytelling particularly effective in educational settings and community programs aimed at prevention and welfare. Prominent organizations, such as the Center for Digital Storytelling in Berkeley, California, have played a significant role in promoting these techniques, emphasizing the importance of authenticity, dramatic questions, and a concise narrative rhythm to create compelling stories. As digital storytelling continues to evolve, it reflects a blend of ancient narrative traditions and modern technological capabilities, fostering a unique and accessible medium for self-expression.
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Subject Terms
Digital Storytelling
Digital storytelling refers to the tendency of individuals to narrate aspects of their daily lives with the use of new media technology such as podcasts, videos, blogs, and social networks. These tools through which people share their lives with others are growing in number, diversity, and sophistication. Although the expression may sound like a contradiction in terms, with “storytelling” recalling oral traditions and “digital” evoking modern technology, digital storytelling constitutes the postmodern adaptation of the ancient art of narrating stories. It is expanding both in terms of practitioners and audience and has also acquired a relevant status in all levels of education due to its engaging and interactive characteristics.
Overview
Digital storytelling is made possible in large part by the accessibility and user-friendliness of new media hardware, such as digital cameras, digital voice recorders, and software such as Windows MovieMaker and Apple iMovie. Through these means, people who are not necessarily professional storytellers produce accounts of their lives or of things that have happened to them. These accounts are then shared with larger communities on the Internet via video-sharing websites such as YouTube and Vimeo, as well as other means of electronic distribution.
In digital storytelling, the ancient art of constructing a narrative is given a new angle through technology that allows storytellers to use multimedia techniques to intertwine words and digitized stills, moving images, music, and animation. Narrative techniques are therefore blended with technological resources to construct digital stories. This gives the storytelling a new form, as these narratives are often nonchronological, nonsequential, and much shorter than conventional narratives. In addition, new media technology allows for a greater interaction with the audience.
Because of these qualities, digital storytelling has attracted increasing numbers of authors and audiences. Evidence of this is the growing popularity of the Center for Digital Storytelling (CDS) in Berkeley, California. Founded in 1988, the center has worked to develop digital storytelling techniques and competencies that appeal to hundreds of organizations and thousands of people all over the world. Its founder, Joe Lambert, has sketched seven crucial elements for a successful practice of storytelling. These are:
1. The story should be personal and authentic.
2. The story should address a dramatic question; that is, it should be about something that is worth telling.
3. The story’s content should be engaging.
4. The story should include the narrator’s voice, not simply music or images.
5. The soundtrack should be used to emphasize and anticipate the crucial elements of the narrative.
6. Storytelling should follow the rule that “less is more”; all elements should be used sparingly, letting the audience work out implicit meanings and metaphors.
7. In addition to creating interaction with the audience, the elements of storytelling should convey a concise rhythm.
The interaction that digital storytelling affords makes it particularly well suited for the education sector as well as for the service sector, where stories have been used to carry out programs in the areas of prevention, inclusion, welfare, and health services.
Bibliography
Alexander, Bryan. The New Digital Storytelling: Creating Narratives with New Media. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2011. Print.
Frazel, Midge. Digital Storytelling Guide for Educators. Washington: ISTE, 2010. Print.
Hartley, John, and Kelly McWilliam, eds. Story Circle: Digital Storytelling around the World. Malden: Blackwell, 2009. Print.
Hernandez, Michael. "The Power of Digital Storytelling." ACSD, vol. 81, no. 4, 1 Dec. 2023, ascd.org/el/articles/the-power-of-digital-storytelling. Accessed 22 Dec. 2024.
Miller, Carolyn Handler. Digital Storytelling: A Creator’s Guide to Interactive Entertainment. 3rd ed. Burlington: Focal, 2014. Print.
Miller, Lisa C. Make Me a Story: Teaching Writing through Digital Storytelling. Portland: Stenhouse, 2010. Print.
Ohler, Jason B. Digital Storytelling in the Classroom: New Media Pathways to Literacy, Learning, and Creativity. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2013. Print.
Sylvester, Ruth, and Wendy-lou Greenidge. “Digital Storytelling: Extending the Potential for Struggling Writers.” Reading Teacher 63.4 (2009): 284–95. Print.