DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.



 

Digital storytelling often relies strongly on pathos to deliver its message.  Pathos is the emotional impact of a work on its audience and, as such, digital stories can emotionally influence an audience far more greatly than a regular story can. . . [a digital] story gains more power.

(Jaylise Cosmo)

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

"What is Digital Storytelling" by Jaylise Cosme

(Spring 2014 ENG201 Student)

Digital Storytelling uses “computer-based tools to tell stories.” It fuses the content of a story with images, videos, sounds, etc.  Living in a digital world, it is important to be able to tell interesting stories that catch the attention of the audience.  Our generation is very reliant on the use of digital media in almost every aspect of our lives.  Old storytelling just doesn’t reach the new generation anymore.  We get bored and prefer other forms of entertainment.  In a way, we become performers because “digital stories necessarily expand conceptions of what it means to perform a text.  While broadly speaking dance, music and poetry might all be viewed as textual performances, digital stories, because they of necessity layer multiple media and modes, complicate our understandings of textual performance as it is linked to the development of identity and agency” (Hull and Katz, 2006, p.47).  These stories are a clear and concise view of the author’s true feelings.  What better way to show your feelings than to perform them? It is not a far-fetched idea, since we perform on a daily basis.  All that is asked is that we exaggerate this daily act in such a way that we are able to use this performance to tell a story important to us.  

 

Digital storytelling has been around since the 1990s.  The pioneers of this type of practice include Joe Lambert and Daniel Meadows.  They both were influential in the use of digital storytelling and defining exactly what it is and what it accomplishes.  On another note, the advances in our technology today have made this type of storytelling not only easier, but also more effective in its outcome.  Think of it as comparing a 1950s movie to a 2014 movie.  The picture is clearer, the quality is better, and it is more lifelike.  This is the same for digital storytelling.  As technology continues to advance, the overall quality of digital stories will continue to expand. 

Digital storytelling often relies strongly on pathos to deliver its message.  Pathos is the emotional impact of a work on its audience and, as such, digital stories can emotionally influence an audience far more greatly than a regular story can.  The narration, which is almost always present in this form of storytelling, gives the person’s voice the emotions, pauses, inflections and deflections that are necessary to convey emotion.  This narration, with music added to it, can tip people off the edge when it comes to emotion.  Music is another influential form of emotion-emitting media.  Adding music to an already emotional- sounding narration can really portray strong images.  Then, when images are added, the story gains more power.  Think of it like texting.  You can read it any way you want, but it might not be the way the person who sent the message intended it to be.  With a digital story, there is no way this type of mistake can be made.  The audience is forced to feel the same emotion as the rhetor, no matter who they are.  If it was just plain words, the audience might all have different interpretations of the emotion that is trying to be portrayed.   

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.
For a student sample, click on Jaylise's narrative below (a narrative about familial cultural capital)
DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.