Exploration
I have been a user of the internet for a long time, but this is my first time being a creator online! Something that I am not a stranger to, however, is storytelling. As a creative writing major, I love telling stories all the time. I wanted to explore the idea of digital storytelling in a broader scene and find out what digital storytelling is by the use of some videos. The best part? I am bringing you along for the ride!
What is Digital Storytelling?
Sustainability and Science Education
This video from the Sustainability and Science Education channel takes a broad look at what digital storytelling is as a whole. Something that particularly stuck out to me in this was the seven elements of digital storytelling: Point of View, Dramatic Question, Emotional Content, Gift of Voice, Power of Soundtrack, Economy, and Pacing. This video was helpful to me in giving me basic information on digital storytelling. My experience starts at the very bottom of learning about this, so this was nice to have some groundwork to be able to build off of, especially as I continue learning about the topic in other videos!
The Power of Digital Storytelling
I am very familiar with TED Talks. I love their YouTube channel and have watched many videos from them in the past, so I found this incredibly enjoyable. Emily’s testimony about the power of digital storytelling was very moving. She gave a firsthand example of how storytelling can evoke emotions from the audience. As a creative writing major, I love telling information that goes beyond the bounds of simply stating something, and Emily showed this excellently. Not only does she show us how this can impact us in our own lives, but also how digital storytelling can help with other jobs. Digital storytelling like this is so significant in our society because it helps to broaden other people’s ideas about a particular topic, or even a particular word. Emily’s example of just using her words at first and then at the end, showing the video over top of the words, made me realize the impact of digital storytelling.
Digital Storytelling: Changing People, Perceptions, and Lives
As stated before, I love a good TED Talk, and this one was a great one as well. Here, Jim tells multiple stories about his life and the people who impacted him. Something that really stood out to me about this instance of digital storytelling was Jim’s commentary about how disconnected we are as a society, and this was posted eleven years ago. I wonder what he thinks about how disconnected or connected we are today. Especially when we live in such a digital society where stories are being told all the time, yet we are one of the most disconnected, in my opinion. Something that I really connected with in this video from my personal life is the idea of just reaching out and asking someone about something. Jim would have never been able to tell so many incredible stories if he had not reached out. Along with digital storytelling, that is something that can be so powerful.
The Digital Storytelling Process
This video goes over the process of digital storytelling with multiple elements. The video goes over the diffrent means of which this story can be executed, everything from your purpose of the story that you want to tell to what means of media you want to use to record it, all the way to how you want to post it. Though short, it is a simple and effective way to summarize how to tell a digital story. Something that I really liked about this video is that it felt like a great way to wrap up the collection of videos that I checked out, almost like a call to action. The videos before had a lot of great detail, but this video highlights how to execute it. I can see myself using this in my career as someone who is going into higher education and student affairs to help with job aids and searches. Having an impactful video of someone who has been through the job before is going to be much more powerful than reading a job description on paper.
Final Thoughts
That was quite a collection of videos. Thank you for sticking with me! Digital storytelling is something that is forever growing and changing, especially as the world revolves around digital technology. It is important to be able to know how to navigate the space and how to be able to use it for your own benefit. I know I will be using these videos to help with any future jobs I might have. Something that I took from all of the videos in this post is power. All of them had the power of emotion, impact, and connection. To me, that is something that digital storytelling offers but regular storytelling does not. I hope you were able to learn lots about digital storytelling just like I did.
Until the next adventure!