Digital Storytelling!!!!!!!
I’m not unfamiliar with story telling. It’s been apart of my life and culture for many years. Since technology is moving so fast I think that now stories can be told in a more visual way. I love the fact that we are moving away from the “academic” definition of storytelling and allowing every day people to share stories through new media; populations that are normally invisable women, people of color, etc… During this semester I have learned to step out of my box and to create and express myself and thoughts visually. I am learning to bridge the academic work with visual culture.
The readings for the week forced me to think about didgital storytelling in different ways. I thought back to when I was a teenager and music was such a powerful influence for me at that time in my life. Music and lyrics told stories to me about what people were going through that I could clearly relate to. Although, the artist may not have been in front of the camera actually speaking their narrative so to speak but, they were still telling a story. So, I thought of Tupac which before he died had been and still is very influential to urban youth. I found this clip on youtube that someone made about Tupac’s life. The story is told through his music and text. Check it out!
FemFuss! 
November 9, 2011 at 11:30 pm
What do you think the role of feeling is in (your) academic work? Storytelling?
November 11, 2011 at 4:28 pm
Sorry it took me so long to respond. I’m at the NWSA conference and I’ve been extremely busy. In my own academic work I think feeling plays an important role. I am personally connected to my research and issues surrounding race, gender and incarceration. So, when I interview someone for an “academic” research paper, thesis, etc…. I not only use digital storytelling to give them voice but simultaneously I help a normally invisible population bring attention to issues that would otherwise not be a concern. For me personally in my academic work I feel that I am most successful when I am directly attached or connected to a topic. Since taking this class, like Andrew, I hopefully plan on using this type of visual method as a part of my dissertation.
November 10, 2011 at 1:48 am
Keeonna: I like your explanation over the clip that you presented in order to support your argument and I also would like to say that you successfullly answered the question ” How does the video you selected speak to you?”.
November 10, 2011 at 7:16 pm
When I was a teenager I loved to use the words of musicians and other artists to speak for me, and to this day I still do that a lot, but I wonder if we are supposed to encourage a more personal investment in digital storytelling in both teaching and practice. I think part of what is democratizing about digital storytelling is the ability to splice together a bunch of pop culture artifacts that we wouldn’t be able to afford to produce to create your own project and your own meaning. But I also think hearing and/or seeing the actual presence of the author is still more powerful than even the most poetic thing another artist could have said. In that 2Pac documentary clip, for example, it would have been even cooler to see the author come on at the end and talk about what 2Pac meant personally to him.
November 10, 2011 at 11:47 pm
Keeonna, I love that in your post you discuss the usefulness of the digital storytelling medium to urban youth. There is certainly something to be said about the importance of having a means by which to produce creative pieces while sharing personal experiences. Having worked with urban youth populations in the past, I witnessed firsthand the freedom that so many of these kids felt whenever they were able to tap into their creative sides to express some of their own experiences. It was like watching them come alive. Tim (and Andrew in his reply to Tim) talks about forming more collective-focused ways of sharing similarly themed digital stories. It would be a nice idea if there were some online forum in which an “urban youth stories” collective could publish their works as part of a social art project able to be viewed by the public (as opposed to YouTube’s more-than-broad spectrum of music videos, songs, animal and baby clips, etc…).
November 10, 2011 at 9:49 pm
I dont know how many times i’ve found cool little docs on youtube about a variety of things that were informative. But it’s a lot. I also like the potential of granting voice to the previously marginalized. But i wonder: how do we get those voices to the people who need to hear them if we only look at things we’re kinda used to seeing?
November 11, 2011 at 1:58 am
The video clip was an interesting choice because it was one amateur digital storyteller telling the story of someone else’s life instead of their own. I feel like it comes off as more of a tribute video than anything—which brings me to Tamara’s post about what the role of expert’s are in this field because even the experts are led to reevaluate their own roles. Perhaps now their role is in allowing and helping people to tell their own stories by giving them the training and the tools to do so. This particular digital storyteller’s case is a bit different because unfortunately Tupac is no longer alive to tell his own story.
November 11, 2011 at 2:33 am
Interesting point that music videos are part of digit storytelling is a piece of storytelling that I overlooked. Your response flooded my mind with lyrical examples of storytelling. To see the content of the Tupac video we are shown the story which visuals embed easily in most minds as opposed to relying on words alone to tell the story.
November 15, 2011 at 8:59 am
Hi Keeonna, I really like the video clip you choose, and I am a big 2PAC fan, his songs influend my teenager period a lot, even I was in China then! (my faviour songs of him are ,,,….he is really the greatest rapper)…….I think you raise a very important point that rap associated with pictures or footages could make a good digital story-telling, since the lyrics of rap is just like a narrative, telling certain things about life, I just feel the definition of digital storytelling is renewed!Thank you!