Digital Storytelling

Overview

Project status: In progress

Digital Storytelling is a method of co-creative media production and a means of enabling communication and social participation. It takes advantage of newly accessible production and distribution technologies but is based in established traditions of storytelling. In digital storytelling workshops, participants work together and with expert facilitators to create first person multimedia narratives for a wide and growing range of purposes, including cultural participation, education, brand identification and public communication. Since 2005 Creative Industries Faculty researchers have adapted digital storytelling for use in a variety of research contexts including heritage, youth welfare, health, and international development, in collaboration with a range of external partner organisations.

As a result of this research activity the Creative Industries Faculty is now a leading site for teaching and learning in digital storytelling. Faculty research activity in digital storytelling has generated interest in adapting the form for use in undergraduate and postgraduate Creative Industries curriculum and in service teaching, including short courses for external clients. This project aims to facilitate collaboration across the teaching/research nexus and to enable knowledge transfer across the Faculty, thereby building capacity for ongoing research and engagement activities involving digital storytelling in the wider community.

http://digitalstorytelling.ci.qut.edu.au/

Grantor
Research leader
Research team
QUT External collaborators Dr Jo Ann Tacchi
Organisational unit
Lead unit Creative Industries Faculty
Start date
1st January 2009
Research area
Digital media, communication and culture
 

Details

Project description

Propagating co-creative media methods and practices for social participation: Ipswich Stories

The 'Ipswich Stories' pilot project was an initiative of QUT and was funded by the institute of Creativity and innovation (iCi) at QUT.  It involved partnering two Ipswich based institutions to co-create digital stories around an 'Ipswich' theme.  There are a number of distinctive characteristics which set this digital storytelling project apart from ones previously conducted: The 'Ipswich Stories' project was a pilot study devised to research the effects of digital storytelling in facilitating intergenerational communication.

Continuing Professional Education Workshops/KKP405: Co-Creative Media: Digital Storytelling

Participants learn about the theory and practice of Digital Storytelling as a co-creative media production technique and a qualitative research platform.

Sustaining Co-Creative Media (Linkage)

Presently in development, this project is concerned with understanding and improving the value of co-creative media for Australian arts and culture. It proposes to employ a participatory action research methodology in partnership with the Australia Council for the Arts (and others) to investigate how self-sustaining structures for propagating co-creative media might be facilitated through knowledge capture and exchange among funding bodies, practitioners, and community-based arts and media organisations.

Creative Industries linkage

Digital Storytelling research at QUT connects creative practice with participatory methods grounded in media and cultural studies scholarship. It provides opportunities to apply expertise in developing a range of projects and activities that facilitate participatory culture in the wider community.

Partnerships

  • Australia Council
  • State Library of Queensland
  • Queensland Museum
  • St. Peter Claver College
  • SeniorNet Association
  • The Smith Family
  • QUT Marketing
  • The Spot Community Services Ltd

Publications and output

More than 300 digital stories have been produced by QUT researchers, staff and students. These have been presented on the World Wide Web, broadcast on community media, released on DVD and exhibited in various forms. In addition, researchers from the Creative Industries Faculty have produced numerous journal articles, conference papers and books reporting the outcomes of research projects utilising digital storytelling in research.