Digital Storytelling Viewed though a Post-process Lens: Reflections from the Fulbright-Hays 2010 China Seminar

Abstract

Post-process theory asserts that writing is public, interpretive, and situated and considers the larger social and political forces that affect a writer. Writing is viewed as a cultural activity by which writers position and reposition themselves in relation to their own and others' subjectivities, discourses, practices, and institutions. Digital storytelling shifts writing from private to public. This qualitative study investigates the process of constructing and publically sharing digital stories by teachers who participated in the Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad 2010 China Seminar. The digital stories from the China Seminar were examined using Bradley's (1995) three-level framework for evaluating levels of reflection. Raters ranked the digital stories, focusing particularly on the evidence of insights about China and Chinese culture, indications of multiple perspectives, and suggestions of new meaning derived from the reflective process. Links to examples of narrative stories at each stage of reflection are in the paper, which uses postmodern and narrative theory to consider narrative representation as it relates to self-construction and revealing self.

Amazing! Two Graduate Students Wrote About Stupid Internet Stuff and Got Away with It! (Page 10 Will Blow Your Mind!)

“…One prominent player in the development of this culture was the website BuzzFeed, which began as an aggregating news organization that quickly developed a new way of delivering content for ease of discovery and shareability. BuzzFeed took clear advantage of the internet's ability to make story content more public than it has ever been before, enabling even amateur writers to publish and reach wider audiences in a way only digital modes of storytelling could offer (Green & Walters, 2013). Specifically highlighting discovery and shareability in the production of news meant that the complexity of actual story content was reduced, leading to sensationalized headlines designed to pique curiosity and evoke quick emotion to drive traffic to stories, no matter how insignificant the story actually was.…”