Web 2.0 Storytellin

g:Introductio

nELI Annual Conference

January 28, 2008Bryan Alexander,

NITLE

What is it?

An emergent set of storytelling practices, growing out of Web 2.0 technologies and cultural

forms.

Caveats

This framework is probably not your project

Whole project versus piece versus principle

Who are people in this?

Roles• Producer• Consumer• Scholar• Teacher• Consultant • Supporter

Questions• Why these

platforms?• How to

discover and participate?

• How to support?

But wait, what's storytelling?

“The last man on Earth sat alone in a room.”

But wait, what's storytelling?

“The last man on Earth sat alone in a room.

There was a knock on the door.” (Fredric Brown, “Knock”, 1948)

But wait, what's storytelling?• Beginning, middle, end• The Freytag triangle

• Delight and instruct

Put another way

What are stories about? What is content?

1. About someone important2. About an important event3. About what one does

Center for Digital Storytelling, Digital Storytelling Cookbook. http://

www.storycenter.org/cookbook.html

Put another way

What are stories about? What is content?

• Personal versus impersonal

• Creative fiction vs nonfiction composition

• Curricular vs campus vs personal vs etc.

(storyteller, Ripton Vermont, 2008)

Web 1.0 storytelling

What can we learn from it?

• Hypertext• Multimedia• Browser-

focused

• Offline, analog content (textbooks)

• Evanescent

Web 1.0 storytelling

Example: Dreaming Methods (2000ff)

http://www.dreamingmethods.com/

Example: “Ted’s Caving Journal” (circa 2001)

(one copy, from http://www.angelfire.com/trek/caver/page1.html)

Features:• Multilinear• Multimedia• Very Web• Serial

structure

Digital storytelling roots

• Digital Storytelling movement

Digital Storytelling at Ukaiah, 2006

Digital storytelling roots

Educational projects growing

• Community

• Curricula • Support

(http://connect.educause.edu/Library/Abstract/StorytellingintheAgeofthe/42327)

Digital storytellingTransmedia

storytelling (Henry Jenkins)

• Multiple platforms• Commercial• Fan base…

Digital storytelling• Franchise or brand• Control across

sites• Diffuse boundaries

Digital storytelling roots

Email chain letters, jokes

• Social• Boundarie

s fuzzy• Microcont

ent(Snopes.com)

Digital storytelling roots

• Virtual community facilitation (1980s on)

http://www.unfiction.com/compendium/2006/11/10/undefining-arg/2/

• Chaotic fiction, including ARGs

Next: Web 2.0

Storytelling:Platforms