Digital Storytelling Final Reflection
Over the course of the semester, dozens of stories have been told cumulatively from each student in our class through the utilization of some form of digital channel. From various websites specializing in sound or picture editing, to comprehensive video subjects varying from fiction, to nonfiction, to everything in between, the mediums for our stories fall into the relatively new category that is digital storytelling. However, despite the amount of content that we’ve considered to be “digital storytelling”, I’m not sure there is an actual answer to the question of what constitutes as such. Is a hundred year old children’s story that is read by a random man on Youtube considered digital storytelling? What about cataloguing your trip to another part of the world through an album on Facebook for your friends to see without any concrete narration or content relating to “storytelling”? Both of the previously stated aspects meet the prerequisites for what is considered storytelling, but does the digital medium make them any different from more traditional methods?
To begin, we’ll look at one side of the spectrum, the side that says digital storytelling is no different from the traditional storytelling methods that have been around since time itself began. According to the dictionary, a story is “an account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment.” Considering how broad this statement is, essentially any retelling of events, whether fictional or not, is “storytelling”, digital or not. Jasper Visser also nailed this point on the head in his essay entitled “Digital Storytelling: How to Tell a Story that Stands Out in the Digital Age” In this essay, Visser makes the claim that “there is no such thing as digital storytelling, there’s only storytelling in the digital age”. Now that one side has manifested their argument, let’s look at a few examples. Over the course of Spring Break, I found myself at a number of spring training baseball games. I took a number of photos at the various games showing how my time was spent in central Florida over the course of three days. I then comprehensively molded my images together for the ING project and did a voice over of how my trip went. However, I wasn’t entirely able to document each and every facet of my trip due to me either missing an event, or not having my camera with me. Take the Kate Upton aspect for example. She was literally 100 feet away from me and I had no idea, and no visual proof, either. And, since I didn’t have this visual content in my story, there was a bit of a discrepancy within my narrative. I told that part of the story through audio only, with no visuals, so does that count as digital storytelling if it was only told with my voice on the computer? I understand images don’t entirely make up the necessary portions of what is required of a “digital story”, but does recorded voice in an electronic channel dictate a digital story, or are images necessary, too? On the other hand, what about our image stories? Art stands for itself and the meaning is interpreted by individuals, thus potentially leading to different meanings held within different pieces. Does a collage of what I like organized alphabetically make up a digital story?
It’s becoming more and more clear there is a vast black and white area for what could be called “digital storytelling”, so let’s look at the other side of the spectrum, the side that states an electronic medium is all that is necessary to meet the required prerequisites. The first example that comes to mind, for me at least, is Paul Shoebridge and Michael Simons’s “Welcome to Pine Point”. For starters, this is one of the most unique things I’ve ever seen on the internet. The way the story was told through flipping images and changing graphics creates an experience that would be impossible without the digital channel. And that’s just it, in order to manifest an experience as such, a computer is the only way to do it. No other technology in the vastness of human history is capable of producing information and content as advanced and precise as a computer. Our purely sound stories are another paramount example of this notion. Before audio recording was created, desired sounds for plays,shows, or any form of storytelling were all manually created on the spot. Music, nature noises, sound effects, virtually everything had to be done following a certain set of rules in order to adhere to the desired audio. But, with the creation of computers, that isn’t the case anymore. My group and I formed a story, that was nothing but sound effects (No music, no dialogue) without any major hurdles to jump over. Our elaborate storytelling of a walk through the woods was done in a classroom. A classroom! We were able to layer numerous sounds over top of one another to create an audio story that would have been impossible 20 years ago. Even more so, every sound that we included in our story came from different parts of the world. Our “walk through the woods” was actually a walk through a dozen geographically different parts of the world. None of the sounds came from the same forest, yet the digital medium allowed us to make a story that made sense, despite how far apart it all happened. Maybe that’s what digital storytelling is, telling tales that would be impossible without such a tool.
To end, digital storytelling is an ever-evolving medium, without an actual clear cut answer of what is considered to be a digital story or not. Personally, I think it all depends on the channel that is being utilized. What’s even more intriguing, however, is that despite how fairly new the cyber age is, the stories that are told still aren’t all that original, they’re just told in an original spectrum. During this piece of audio from Ted Radio Hour, the topic of the discussion is originality and how nothing, at least anymore, is actually indigenous. We also talked about this idea last semester in Writing for Digital Media. Like the interpretation of stories, it is ultimately up to the consumer to decide for themselves what digital storytelling actually is. Opinions are what make each of us unique, and that idea surely carries over to thoughts on Digital Storytelling. Perhaps in ten years we’ll have more of a clear cut answer as our digital technologies evolve. But until then, stories will have to just be accepted for what they really are: stories.
Over the course of the semester, dozens of stories have been told cumulatively from each student in our class through the utilization of some form of digital channel. From various websites specializing in sound or picture editing, to comprehensive video subjects varying from fiction, to nonfiction, to everything in between, the mediums for our stories fall into the relatively new category that is digital storytelling. However, despite the amount of content that we’ve considered to be “digital storytelling”, I’m not sure there is an actual answer to the question of what constitutes as such. Is a hundred year old children’s story that is read by a random man on Youtube considered digital storytelling? What about cataloguing your trip to another part of the world through an album on Facebook for your friends to see without any concrete narration or content relating to “storytelling”? Both of the previously stated aspects meet the prerequisites for what is considered storytelling, but does the digital medium make them any different from more traditional methods?
To begin, we’ll look at one side of the spectrum, the side that says digital storytelling is no different from the traditional storytelling methods that have been around since time itself began. According to the dictionary, a story is “an account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment.” Considering how broad this statement is, essentially any retelling of events, whether fictional or not, is “storytelling”, digital or not. Jasper Visser also nailed this point on the head in his essay entitled “Digital Storytelling: How to Tell a Story that Stands Out in the Digital Age” In this essay, Visser makes the claim that “there is no such thing as digital storytelling, there’s only storytelling in the digital age”. Now that one side has manifested their argument, let’s look at a few examples. Over the course of Spring Break, I found myself at a number of spring training baseball games. I took a number of photos at the various games showing how my time was spent in central Florida over the course of three days. I then comprehensively molded my images together for the ING project and did a voice over of how my trip went. However, I wasn’t entirely able to document each and every facet of my trip due to me either missing an event, or not having my camera with me. Take the Kate Upton aspect for example. She was literally 100 feet away from me and I had no idea, and no visual proof, either. And, since I didn’t have this visual content in my story, there was a bit of a discrepancy within my narrative. I told that part of the story through audio only, with no visuals, so does that count as digital storytelling if it was only told with my voice on the computer? I understand images don’t entirely make up the necessary portions of what is required of a “digital story”, but does recorded voice in an electronic channel dictate a digital story, or are images necessary, too? On the other hand, what about our image stories? Art stands for itself and the meaning is interpreted by individuals, thus potentially leading to different meanings held within different pieces. Does a collage of what I like organized alphabetically make up a digital story?
It’s becoming more and more clear there is a vast black and white area for what could be called “digital storytelling”, so let’s look at the other side of the spectrum, the side that states an electronic medium is all that is necessary to meet the required prerequisites. The first example that comes to mind, for me at least, is Paul Shoebridge and Michael Simons’s “Welcome to Pine Point”. For starters, this is one of the most unique things I’ve ever seen on the internet. The way the story was told through flipping images and changing graphics creates an experience that would be impossible without the digital channel. And that’s just it, in order to manifest an experience as such, a computer is the only way to do it. No other technology in the vastness of human history is capable of producing information and content as advanced and precise as a computer. Our purely sound stories are another paramount example of this notion. Before audio recording was created, desired sounds for plays,shows, or any form of storytelling were all manually created on the spot. Music, nature noises, sound effects, virtually everything had to be done following a certain set of rules in order to adhere to the desired audio. But, with the creation of computers, that isn’t the case anymore. My group and I formed a story, that was nothing but sound effects (No music, no dialogue) without any major hurdles to jump over. Our elaborate storytelling of a walk through the woods was done in a classroom. A classroom! We were able to layer numerous sounds over top of one another to create an audio story that would have been impossible 20 years ago. Even more so, every sound that we included in our story came from different parts of the world. Our “walk through the woods” was actually a walk through a dozen geographically different parts of the world. None of the sounds came from the same forest, yet the digital medium allowed us to make a story that made sense, despite how far apart it all happened. Maybe that’s what digital storytelling is, telling tales that would be impossible without such a tool.
To end, digital storytelling is an ever-evolving medium, without an actual clear cut answer of what is considered to be a digital story or not. Personally, I think it all depends on the channel that is being utilized. What’s even more intriguing, however, is that despite how fairly new the cyber age is, the stories that are told still aren’t all that original, they’re just told in an original spectrum. During this piece of audio from Ted Radio Hour, the topic of the discussion is originality and how nothing, at least anymore, is actually indigenous. We also talked about this idea last semester in Writing for Digital Media. Like the interpretation of stories, it is ultimately up to the consumer to decide for themselves what digital storytelling actually is. Opinions are what make each of us unique, and that idea surely carries over to thoughts on Digital Storytelling. Perhaps in ten years we’ll have more of a clear cut answer as our digital technologies evolve. But until then, stories will have to just be accepted for what they really are: stories.