A few months ago, I asked a few hyperlocal people to share some of their best “digital stories”. What they pointed to looked nothing like the 2-minutes-and-a-bit first-person-narrative videos that the #DS6 digital storytellers have developed.
Will Perrin pointed out Spitalfields Life. Joe Stashko shared Blog Preston’s EDL/UAF demo coverage. Nicky Getgood told me about her Postcode Stories work with the Girl Guides.
Why even begin this search? Because I was asked to speak about “hyperlocal” at the sixth Digital Storytelling conference in Aberystwyth.
At first, I thought I could find some digital stories on hyperlocal sites. Except there aren’t any. Well, not any that fit the mold of digital storytelling.
I first learned what digital storytelling is from Daniel Meadows. He led the Capture Wales project for the BBC, helping people tell their stories. He also teaches a module at Cardiff University. His sales pitch for this class is more compelling than any I’ve seen. Master’s students in the journalism department rushed to the admin office to bid for a spot. I wasn’t fast enough in 2008.
So last year, by chance, I met Esko @Reinikainen at a Cardiff Bloggers Meetup two weeks before the fifth conference of digital storytelling. I’d never been up to Aber. Figuring it a chance to see a new part of Wales and learn what I’d missed, I went.
That’s when I figured out just what this movement was about:
Digital Stories are multimedia narratives
Short, personal and written with feeling there’s a strictness to their construction: 250 words, a dozen or so pictures, and two minutes is about the right length.
There is a strictness, as Daniel writes on his Photobus website. And I’m not entirely sure I agree that a digital story needs to manifest itself in this exact way. From my knowledge of this movement, which pales in comparison to those behind it, the process is what makes digital storytelling unique. That process is grounded in a “story circle” — the initial place where a small group of people share their stories before deciding which ones to tell. It ends in the films being screened for the group, and their families and friends.
All of this is bound together in some guiding principles, derived from the Center for Digital Storytelling in the states:
At the core of our work is a commitment to narrative, an enduring respect for the power of individual voices and a deep set of values and principles that recognize how sharing and bearing witness to stories can lead to learning, action, and positive change.
This seems familiar. They sound like several of the reasons that drive and guide many independent online community publishers in the UK.
Then comes digital storytellers emphasis on accessibility to tools. Regular folk need to feel they are able to make a short film. Digital storytelling is all about using laptops, scanners, smart phones, flip cams, headphones and the insides of a car to whip out a little personal narrative. It is a very do-it-yourself culture. And this is where I think the two movements collide.
DIY is the bread and butter of the little hyperlocals.
So as these two movements carry on, they should say hello. Nicky Getgood did last Thursday.
Here’s my presentation (my first using Prezzi, so please forgive the ultra zoominess):
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One of the paradoxes, for me, in the digital storytelling movement is that ‘trust’ within the story circle– the vulnerability that people need to admit to when telling an effective story– precludes social media as an outlet for the digital storytelling movement.
I dont’ know if you’ve read the book published by CDS, but I would recommend it (despite the paradox).
Thanks for this post, I hope they do get together eventually.
Hi Joni
Cheers for a great presentation at #DS6!
I’d love to see these two worlds brought closer together, they’ve much to learn from each other as you say. It would be great to see some of the Digital Storytellers’ ways and means rolling out into the hyperlocal network. I was really impressed that the crux of the producing these stories is the conversations that draw the stories out and giving people the confidence and very simple skills to tell them.
As you say, DIY is the bread and butter of the little hyperlocals. So is delving deep under the surface of their local place and people and bringing hidden or overlooked gems to the surface by telling their stories. Thanks for reminding me of this (I went to LocalGovCamp the day after DS6 so it’s been a whirlwind of a weekend!) – you’ve added a blog post and a fair few emails to my to-do list!
Hi, I attended #ds6 last friday and saw the presentation; wouldn’t it be great if digital storytelling was a method that hyperlocalists used to tell a story. Surely using a variety of media is the way in which we can make communication interesting and engaging. And selecting the right media for the right story is the trick. Digital Storytelling is both a process and a product, with the ideal scenario that both are just as important as one another which is when the digital story manages to make people care about what is said and a connection with the story is made.