Constructing Narratives of Self and Community in the Age of the Internet

Glad I was able to make the first session this morning; thankfully today began at 9:00 instead of the 8:30 yesterday.

This morning’s session is about digital storytelling, something I have never been able to get my mind around as a research methodology / process / strategy.

Much of this work started and was supported from the California-based Center for Digital Storytelling. It was intended to give a voice to the author by the use of computer tools. It is a method and a movement and can be understood as a distinct media genre.

The identity of the narrator is present in the story, and this was individualistic but prescriptive, being used to represent the self. It has developed into something that is moving to institutional use. It originally helped to create communities through capturing the lives of individuals. This moving from the development from narrativing selvesĀ  to narrating community signaled a shift from individual to the institutional to capture life by telling stories.

Mediatized stories and narratives of media ambivalence as identity markers are both concepts discussed by presenters.

One of the classic works in this area is Story Circle, which is about digital storytelling throughout the world.

With changes in Web 2.0, digital storytelling continues to change dramatically.

Interesting affordances for self-representation comparing digital storytelling and Facebook. #ir11

Ahh, now onto community identity construction through apologetics; religious use and how constructed narratives are established to form and support communities.

The last presenter is not using slides. Seems fitting for a presentation on stroytelling, though it is rather heavy theory and I am struggling to keep up as I do not have a widde background in this. Would have been nice to have a visual agenda of the argument at least, and I am right now lost.

Nice discussion about this storytelling.

I asked a question — have you studied any communities or use of digital storytelling to control populations, rather than just continue to promote community or continue emphasizing mainstream religions or communities, rather than something that may not be as widely accepted (such as a cult or terrorist cell). Alas, only based on “good community.”