If there’s anything that’s become obvious in the last couple classes, it’s that defining digital storytelling is like nailing the proverbial jelly to the wall. There is no one complete, all-encompassing definition for DST and each person has their own idea of what it could be. Digital storytelling is generally a method of telling a story that requires some form of new media (video, photography, computers) as opposed to old media (generally, paper). It’s typically a montage of video and photography with a narrative and music as a soundtrack. Of course, there are also digital stories that use only video or only photography, while others use only a narrative or only music (although those are generally seen as bad examples of how to tell a digital story). Then there are the ones that instead of using photography or video, use drawings—such as the online cartoon that Mike showed us last week in his posting. Or the ones that use speeches or other pre-recorded non-narratives as their soundtrack rather than an actual story—such as the Kennedy speech I shared last week in my posting. In addition to all of these elements, the written word can also be added to emphasize certain points, as in some of the examples we saw in the first night of class. So, in conclusion, digital storytelling can include photographs, video, artwork, text, music, narrative, and other sound-recordings. Or only some of these items. At its most basic definition, digital storytelling requires some visual item, some aural item and some sort of theme—and hopefully a point.
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