What is Digital Storytelling?

What is Digital Storytelling?

While exploring the readings assigned for this week, I got started by exploring the Wikipedia webpage for what exactly “digital storytelling” means. The first sentence of that webpage said “Digital storytelling refers to a short form of digital media production that allows everyday people to share aspects of their life story.” Reading further into it, the webpage stated that ordinary people are the subjects of digital storytelling and they use a variety of digital tools to tell their story, often presented in compelling and emotionally engaging formats simply by narrating the person’s story and putting it online in the digital world. The webpage also mentioned the aspect of having the option of an interactive piece to the practice of digital storytelling.

While moving forward in the week’s readings, I read the article about the value of using digital storytelling in a small museum. I found it to be an inspiring article about coming to the realization that there is so much more to this digital world that can be utilized for museums. “Less need to write and print book s or pamphlets in order to share information. Less need to store those books and pamphlets for years until they sell or reprint them when they sell out. Less need for exhibit panels. Less need for consultants.” The author of the article states that the digital medium will create remarkable financial savings at the same time as allowing the museum to be so much more flexibility and freedom. These new digital aspects to the museum will hopefully encourage more participants to come and take part of the growing digital and interactive elements to the museum.

The Stonybrook University’s Digital Storytelling webpage was interesting. It had quite a few resources that will become very helpful while developing my own digital stories. There is an invaluable tab on their webpage titled “Copyright, Creative Commons and Fair Use” that provides resources about using copyrighted information and what is and is not copyrighted information. One of the “Spotlight Digital Story” videos on the Stonybrook University page was either titled “Breathe” or “Hold Fast to Dreams” was a video we watched and critiqued in class. It was a narrative of a woman’s life story from growing up as an undocumented immigrant to making her way into college. There were many sound aspects to her video that kept the audience interested in what was to come (her voice and a variety of musical segments to fit the mood) and she included various intriguing photographs. Although, as we discussed in class, her photos were not credited and most likely had many copyright issues, and we mentioned that her story seemed too long and drug out, she could have easily taken out some of her meditating moments to create a shorter, more captivating story.

As I dug into some of the projects on the Curatescape platform, I decided to look at the Mount Pleasant Historical (sponsored by the town of Mount Pleasant, www.mountpleasanthistorical.org). I was asked to pick out a story that I really enjoyed and one that I did not like very much. The story I chose as the one I enjoyed was titled “Shell Rings and Shell Middens.” I really appreciated this story because my background is in anthropology/ archaeology and these shell rings and middens were created by Native American peoples 3000-4000 years ago, long before modern settlers came to the Americas. These shell middens were found along the SC coast, several have been found in the East Cooper area. They are composed of shell, animal bone, and pottery, suggesting habitation sites. These sites also suggest that the inhabitants successfully harvested natural resources, allowing nomadic bands to eventually settle at more ‘permanent’ locations.

"Shell midden could affirm tribe's stories of Hood Canal" Kitsap Sun (Nov. 4, 2012). This photograph is of one of the shell middnes discovered at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor along the Hood Canal, WA, potentially from the Skokomish, S'Klallam and Suquamish tribes.

The article I decided I did not like very much was titled “Silas N. Pearman Bridge.” This story was very scarce on information about the history associated with the bridge. The story stated that the Grace Bridge was replaced by the Silas N. Pearman Bridge in 1966, named for the chief commissioner of the state highway department. The Silas N. Pearman Bridge was itself eventually replaced by the Arthur Ravenel, Jr Bridge in 2005, constructed next to the previous bridge. I felt this story could use more background about who these bridges were named for.

“Bear 71” was part of the homework that was assigned to look at. “Bear 71” was an excellent story about the trapping and tagging of a female grizzly bear in the Banff National Park, Canada. The story starts out with a very suspenseful mood, having no sounds except for those of a bear struggling as its paw is trapped in a wire, showing the reality of the situation. Then the narrator starts speaking in a female voice, that of the bear, guiding us through the story of being drugged and tagged with a number and having a transceiver collar placed on. The story seems to be contrasting wild with human emotions in an almost sarcastic manner. Once the bear is released back into the wild the story transforms to an interactive segment that is very unclear on what exactly we are supposed to do and how to do so. I eventually determined the interactive medium was too confusing and not worth my time and energy.