Story Circle: Digital Storytelling Around the World

Everyone loves a story. Not everyone loves a computer. Digital storytelling is a workshop–based practice in which people are taught to use digital media to create short audio–video stories, usually about their own lives, placing the universal human delight in narrative and self expression into the hands of everyone, bringing a timeless form into the digital age, and giving a voice to the myriad tales of everyday life as experienced by ordinary people.

Story Circle is the first collection ever devoted to a comprehensive international study of the digital storytelling movement. Exploring subjects of central importance on the emergent and ever–shifting digital landscape–– consumer–generated content, memory grids, the digital storytelling youth movement, and micro–documentary––Story Circle pinpoints who is telling what stories where, on what terms, and what they look and sound like. From China and Brazil to Western Europe and Australia, Story Circle charts how tales are being told and retold in the digital age.

List of Figures

List of Tables

Acknowledgments

Notes on Contributors

Part I: What is Digital Storytelling?

1. Computational Power Meets Human Contact: John Hartley (Queensland University of Technology) and Kelly McWilliam (Queensland University of Technology)

2. TV Stories: From Representation to Productivity: John Hartley (Queensland University of Technology)

3. The Global Diffusion of a Community Media Practice: Digital Storytelling Online: Kelly McWilliam (Queensland University of Technology)

Part II: Foundational Practices

4. Where It All Started: The Center for Digital Storytelling in California: Joe Lambert (Center for Digital Storytelling, Berkeley, California)

5. "Capture Wales": The BBC Digital Storytelling Project: Daniel Meadows (University of Cardiff) and Jenny Kidd (University of Manchester)

6. Digital Storytelling at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image: Helen Simondson (Australian Centre for the Moving Image)

7. Radio Storytelling and Beyond: Marie Crook (freelance consultant))

Part III: Digital Storytelling Around the World

8. Narrating Euro–African Life in Digital Space: Sissy Helff (University of Frankfurt) and Julie Woletz (University of Frankfurt)

9. Developing Digital Storytelling in Brazil: Margaret Anne Clarke (University of Porstmouth)

10. Digital Storytelling as Participatory Public History in Australia: Jean Burgess (Queensland University of Technology) and Helen Klaebe (Queensland University of Technology)

11. Finding a Voice: Participatory Development in Southeast Asia: Jo Tacchi (Queensland University of Technology)

12. The Matrices of Digital Storytelling: Examples from Scandinavia: Knut Lundby (University of Oslo)

13. Digital Storytelling in Belgium: Power and Participation: Nico Carpentier (Free University of Brussels and Catholic University of Brussels)

14. Exploring Self–representations in Wales and London: Tension in the Text: Nancy Thumim (London School of Economics and Political Science)

Part IV: Emergent Practices

15. Digital Storytelling as Play: The Tale of Tales: Maria Chatzichristodoulou (University of London)

16. Commercialization and Digital Storytelling in China: Wu Qiongli (company director)

17. Digital Storytelling with Youth: Whose Agenda Is It?: Lora Taub–Pervizpour (Muhlenberg College)

18. Digital Storytelling in Education: An Emerging Institutional Technology?: Patrick Lowenthal (Regis University)

19. Digital Storytelling in Organizations: Syntax and Skills: Lisa Dush (Massachusetts University of Technology)

20. Beyond Individual Expression: Working with Cultural Institutions: Jerry Watkins (Swinburne University of Technology) and Angelina Russo (Swinburne University of Technology)

References

Index

John Hartley is Distinguished Professor and ARC Federation Fellow at Queensland University of Technology, and Research Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative industries and Innovation. He is the author of Television Truths (Wiley–Blackwell 2008) and A Short History of Cultural Studies (2003), and editor of Creative Industries (Wiley–Blackwell 2005). He is Editor of the International Journal of Cultural Studies.

Kelly McWilliam is an ARC Postdoctoral Research Fellow (Industry) in the Creative Industries Faculty of Queensland University of Technology. She is the co–author, with Jane Stadler, of Screen Media: Analysing Film and Television (2009) and the author of When Carrie Met Sally: Lesbian Romantic Comedies (2008).

"There can be no doubt that this book is important in fostering understanding of DST′s potential and it deserves many readers among students, researchers and practitioners." ( Seminar.net, July 2010)