[Higgins]: Digital Storytelling Information

What is Digital Storytelling?

Digital Storytelling is a method of telling personal stories using digital tools. These are typically stories of personal relevance -- transcendence, transformation, change, of events or people in our lives who have made a difference.

Rather than the goal of commercial, corporate media to sell soap, the focus is on hearing the stories of everyday people, the communities in which they live, and the people with whom they share the planet. The belief is that there is empowerment in hearing the stories, as well as empowerment in the telling of the stories. Digital technologies are tools to aid in this ancient human process.

Primarily initiated by the multimedia performance work of Dan Atchley and developed by Joe Lambert, founder of the Center for Digital Storytelling in Berkeley, California, USA, the technique has spread across the globe. Contexts have included support in healing and prevention of domestic violence, awareness of HIV, conflict resolution and reconciliation, and self-reflexivity in the college classroom.

Digital storytelling focuses more on the stories told, and less on the technical polish of the finished production. Simple digital tools and methods are used, drawing from archival family photographs and artifacts, with the voice of the storyteller favored over that of the polished professional announcer.

There are striking similarities between the tenets of digital storytelling and notions of self-reflexivity, oral history, ethnographic methods of social science, and media as tools for building community and affecting personal/social change. With stories rooted in the experience of the storyteller searching for personal or universal human truths, digital storytelling offers a unique method of prompting practical self-reflexivity for people in a variety of personal and cultural contexts.

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Selected Sites of Interest:

The Center for Digital Storytelling
"The Center for Digital Storytelling is [an] . . . arts organization rooted in the art of personal storytelling. We assist young people and adults in using the tools of digital media to craft, record, share, and value the stories of individuals and communities, in ways that improve all our lives." The site includes digital stories, resources, workshop schedules, and a great "how-to" guide, The Digital Storytelling Cookbook.
www.storycenter.org

Projects of the Center for Digital Storytelling include:

Watch Stories (CDS)
Watch featured digital stories from CDS workshops, curated by the Center for Digital Storytelling.
storycenter.org/stories

StoryCircles
On-line site for sharing video digital stories, from the Center for Digital Storytelling. [NOTE: This site requires an account to view stories. You may want to consider joining -- and uploading your own digital story to the site's collection.]
storycircles.org

"Silence Speaks" Project
A project of the Center for Digital Storytelling, "in support of healing and violence prevention."
www.silencespeaks.org/

South African Digital Stories
A project of the Center for Digital Storytelling with South African EngenderHealth’s “Men as Partners” (MAP) initiative and the “Silence Speaks” project

KQED TV's Digital Storytelling Initiative
Very helpful in getting started with digital storytelling: the KQED Digital Storytelling Manual -- free!
Site contains a wide variety of digital stories to view-- from children to seniors, various contexts.
www.dsi.kqed.org

Menlo College Student Digital Stories Digital Stories created by undergraduate students at Menlo College, Atherton, California, USA. Fostering self-reflexivity as a part of a critical pedagogy within media production.
www.mediaprof.org -- "student projects" -- "digital storytelling."

Available on the MenloTV channel on YouTube --"Digital Storytelling" Playlist (http://www.youtube.com/MenloTV)
or on Blip.TV: menlotv.blip.tv.
Also available as downloadable podcasts from the iTunes Store (search: "menlo college" or "mctv").

Below: MenloTV channel on YouTube -- "Digital Storytelling" Playlist

Nicosia, Cyprus: 2008 Playlist on YouTube site featuring digital stories from workshop at Sidestreets in Nicosia, Cyprus. www.youtube.com/sfmediaprof -- "playlist" -- "digital storytelling
Information re: Digital Storytelling workshop at Sidestreets October/November 2008.
www.mediaprof.org/d-storytelling-Nicosia2008.html

Below: Digital Stories from Sidestreets workshop, Nicosia
(SFmediaProf channel on YouTube -- "Digital Storytelling" Playlist)

CHYME Digital Stories (Community Histories by Youth in the Middle East)
www.cctvcambridge.org/media/video/chyme/index.html
Digital Storytelling was a part of a project with the Slifka Program in Intercommunal Coexistence, a program of The International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life, Brandeis University
www.brandeis.edu/slifka

Stories for Change On-line meeting place for digital storytelling facilitators and advocates to share resources and stories.
www.storiesforchange.net

Dana Atchley's Next Exit Archived works of the late performance artist and digital storyteller.
www.nextexit.com

Information re: Digital Storytelling workshop at Sidestreets in Nicosia, Cyprus 2008
www.mediaprof.org/d-storytelling-Nicosia2008.html

Additional Resources:

"Digital Storytelling Cookbook"
A "how-to" guide from the The Center for Digital Storytelling. Additional resources and links are available on the CDS site.
http://www.storycenter.org/cookbook.html

"The Art, Skill, Craft, and Magic of Digital Storytelling: A How-Come, How-To Guide, 2008 Edition"
from KQED TV (San Francisco, USA), Digital Storytelling Initiative. Additional resources and links available on the KQED DSI site.
http://dsi.kqed.org/index.php/workshops/about/C66/

OUR MEDIA.ORG's Tutorial on Digital Storytelling Our Media is a non-profit oriented "You Tube" that is philosophically in line with digital storytelling. This is an excellent tutorial on how to create your own digital story.
www.ourmedia.org

Resources and links for Digital Storytelling. From Tech-Head.com.
www.tech-head.com/dstory.htm