Digital Storytelling: Resistive Stories and the “Measurement” of Change

Arguably, the powerful potential of digital stories lies in their “digital” nature. It places a value of possibilities on such stories and pushes their “collectors” to strive for more, to achieve a wider impact with these stories. It is the intended purpose of “wanting these stories collected and created” that not only heavily influences the final narrative form and telling of a digital story, but also ironically conditionally demands for some form of utilitarian value. As a digital storytelling practitioner, I interrogate this requirement for “use” and “usefulness” through the lens of social change and within a human rights framework.

There is no doubt that the digital in digital storytelling allows access to a global arena of audiences. However, securing access to a greater number of “receivers of stories” affords no guarantee of change. There is no “cause and effect” in storytelling, and the “change” sought by institutions through the creation and co-creation of digital stories is questionable.

Lambert describes the “evolution” of digital storytelling within the growing movement of digital storytelling mediators quite aptly as “our appropriation of ‘storytelling’” (2009: 80). It is indeed in our appropriation of storytelling that we bring in our personal and institutional biases, motivations, interests, inclinations and agendas— professional or otherwise. As media, archival, cultural and educational institutions struggle to add value and purpose without losing their advantage and profitability (Hesmondhalgh 2007; Lash and Lury 2007; Thumim 2008; Wu 2009: 232), these join many individuals around the world who find themselves increasingly losing relevance and influence over decisions that affect their lives. The “struggles for attention” have brought forth a digital storytelling movement, practised in increasingly diverse contexts, but heavily criticised for its lack of utilitarian value (Hartley & McWilliam 2009: 14–15), outreach and scalability (Hartley 2013: 78–79). Hartley (2013) argues that personal stories must compete to gain attention and to do so their storytellers would need to emulate the capabilities of mainstream media (2013: 78).

To support his argument, Hartley puts forward the example of Tavi Gevinson, someone who, from the young age of 11 years old, capably took the often limited reach of self-mediated social media and transformed it into a global presence (2013: 78; see also Gevinson 2012). What Hartley fails to consider is that it may not be about Gevinson’s creative use of digital media’s scale-up capacity, but the discourse she used that appealed to many, a discourse that resonated with young women, girl teens, and highly possibly, adult women all over the world.

See, for example, Poletti 2011a and 2011b, where she discusses the massive success of PostSecret, an ongoing community mail art project by Frank Warren, and the appeal of the discourse of confession.

Gevinson’s own struggles in questioning how she locates herself as a feminist is a discourse of imperfection and internal flux that is able to speak to multiple audiences at any one time over social media, the phenomenon of context collapse that boyd (2008) alludes to. There may also be the paradoxical issue that stems from the patriarchal norms of society of how girls enjoy wider freedoms of expression as well as the privileges of being heard, until they grow up to be women. Furthermore, if change is assured with scale-up and outreach, the human race would have managed to stop many of the atrocities of violence and discrimination that not only continue to be perpetuated, but appears to be much more widespread than ever before with us seeing many more failed States across the world.

This requirement of use and usefulness is where digital storytelling departs from our human tradition of sharing stories, and acquires characteristics similar to that of storytelling to advance human rights. The digital storytelling movement in effect has inadvertently produced a greater number of “judges of narratives”—people who exercise their “will to know” and who sit in judgment over personal narratives which are packaged and presented to conform to their pre-set rules.

For a fuller discussion on the “judges of narratives” in the field of human rights, please see Schaffer & Smith 2004.

It follows then that the key questions to ask here are, “what change is sought through digital storytelling and digital stories?” and “where does the significance of such change lie? Whose loss of relevance and influence are these digital stories meant to address?”. While the question, “who is heard, and to what end?” (Burgess 2006: 204) is valid, what is implied in self-representational digital stories is that the intended audience of such a digital story naturally and ultimately must include the “I”, the storyteller.

Even when Helff and Woletz described the problem of defining digital storytelling, they possibly offered the most all-encompassing definition for self-representational digital stories (2009: 131).

What Helff and Woletz inadvertently point to is that digital stories are inherently non-conforming. They are able to be both endearing and resistive, which can often be powerful in their simplicity and authenticity. The “suprisingly powerful rawness” which Simondson observed (2009: 121), makes these digital stories a natural resource for human rights activism.

Because of this surprisingly powerful effect on audiences, digital storytelling has understandably caught on with women’s rights groups who have long given credence to herstories—valuing and honouring the sacredness of the woman’s voice and her chosen text, by retaining only the details and information that she wishes to share. While the advent of new media has facilitated such an impetus,

For a further elaboration on how new media are able to do this, see for example, Curran & Couldry2003.

In fact, the original intentions behind digital storytelling mirror the practice of human rights activists, in how agency and the voice of the marginalised is encouraged and positioned. For the motivations of those who originally organised and offered digital storytelling are to “assault dominant culture” (Lambert 2009: 81), “to challenge representations” (Thumim 2009: 205–217) and “to give participants a sense of agency and control in the telling of stories about situations wherein they typically had little or no control”.

See http://silencespeaks.org/methods/.

The use of stories in the field of human rights, however, tends to focus on two prominent functions—to highlight the violation of human rights, and hence, the violence and the impact of such violence, as well as to put a human face to such suffering. What digital stories are able to do quite powerfully is to affect audiences and carry them beyond the overt violence while still enabling the voice of the agentive self (Hull & Katz 2006), one that exercises self-representation and one that leads in the social change sought (what is often referred to as the form of “power to’ by human rights activists).

For a further elaboration of expressions of power, see VeneKlasen & Miller 2007.

Schaffer and Smith (2004) have described in great detail the venues for storytelling for human rights advocacy, and have shown that the “packaging” of the personal story has had to conform to the rules of those “receiving” the stories, whether they be truth commissions, tribunals and national inquiries on the one end or infotainment websites and platforms of non-governmental organisations, media groups and so on, on the other end. The “judges of narrative” exercise their “will to know” and subject such personal stories to scrutiny, to ensure that these stories are sufficiently strong enough “to sell” to audiences of authority and influence. The “packaging” is particularly constrained within the existing protocols for codification of a human rights abuse and the legal norms of argument. Paradoxically, these protocols bring to bear a further reinforcement of the dominant (Schaffer & Smith 2004: 40).

As digital storytelling practitioners—those who conduct digital storytelling workshops and those who intentionally collect digital stories—we similarly invite digital storytellers to tell their stories, and we purposefully collect them for our own reasons. We are certainly the mediators whom Powazek (quoted in Meadows & Kidd 2009: 96) placed in positions of authority and power in describing “authentic media”, and which he defined as mediatised stories that “give the mike over to people who actually have something to say”. Though we may tell ourselves we are only mediators, we often find ourselves sitting in judgment as to what story is “worthy enough” (see for example, Silverstone 2007: 109; Deuze 2007, quoted in Lundby 2009: 184).

Whether we remain “judges of narratives” depends on our mediational processes which in turn rely on how well we transform “power over” during the digital storytelling process into “power with” and “power within” the storytellers (see also Martin Barbero 1993, quoted in Lundby 2009: 182; Couldry 2000: 7; Taub-Pervizpour 2009: 245–247). It is this very transformation of power and the equalising of power relations that will return us to the essence of our ancient oral tradition of humankind, telling stories.

In our human tradition of telling stories, stories are often exchanged between friends, and only sometimes among strangers. They are seldom “useful” but in themselves they carry a social value.

Digital stories, like stories, are gifts, given away in trust. Digital storytelling is merely a digital extension of our ancient tradition of storytelling, not necessarily one that is more expressive or effective in affecting audiences through the telling, because time and again, the human tradition of telling stories has ostensibly proven that not everyone is a good storyteller.

In our understanding of digital storytelling, it becomes critical to differentiate the “art of storytelling” as a profession, and “telling stories” as a human tradition. The latter is often a private, selective, exclusive and intimate affair—an outcome of a conscious decision to share, sometimes through invitation, often because of acceptance or at minimum, in the absence of rejection. Commonly, between friends, it is a non-verbalised standing invitation. Implicitly, it is informally conditional only by the varied personalities of our friends and the differential extent of intimacy we have with each one. Digital storytelling may be described as such an intimate invitation but it is one, which is formally conditional.

Digital storytelling workshops are both intentional and purposeful. The stated objectives usually go beyond the mere sharing of stories. Irrespective of any “promises” or incentives given (in cash or in kind), however, no storyteller (unless they lack the decision-making capacity of the average adult) engages in any digital storytelling workshop without first accepting the invitation to tell a story, and to share it within the prescriptive parameters set forth by the organisers of these workshops. The digital storyteller may even pay a fee to attend such a workshop. At the end of the day, the digital storyteller remains the one who decides which story to “give” away, dictated by her or his personal needs, even if we, as digital storytelling practitioners, “demand” that these stories are told. However, the decisions by storytellers in what stories to give away are not always easy, and not always with the willingness and readiness expressed below.

This includes workshops where funders are visibly involved. While there is the issue that the stories become the property of these funders, despite the limited space for renegotiating the power dynamics in these situations, digital storytellers do decide which story to give away even as they are subjected to the dictated parameters on themes, topics or types of stories.

Digital stories like stories uniquely retain their ownership with their original storytellers when completely subjected to the benevolence of those receiving them. We, as digital storytelling workshop facilitators or as owners and organisers of digital storytelling projects, may seek consent describing how we intend to use and store the digital stories collected, but consent obtained in this manner is an ethical practice that is not legally binding. While there is a parallel practice in the field of human rights, the rules determined for digital storytelling workshops are not necessarily always designed to intentionally bring about “an act of response” to the story or stories concerned. For example, both videos on “Digital Storytelling”

See http://www.acmi.net.au/dst_about.htm. Accessed 30 April 2013.

Within the digital storytelling movement, there are a number of projects or programmes that do not necessarily “challenge the dominant”. Some of these offer skills-building, with a focus on imparting the technical skills and/or bridging the “digital divide”. Others educate on the narrative form, often focusing on traditional narrative forms or the performative story, possibly framing these within a communication perspective. Many, largely public institutions, focus on knowledge-building, such as contributing to the building of a collective history of a community or towards public education and awareness-raising on public health issues. Then there are those with predominant commercial interests who adopt digital storytelling for story branding (or brand storytelling). The intentions behind offering a digital storytelling workshop for such “project owners” dictate the kind of change they seek and not necessarily the change sought by storytellers. Even when both seek to witness a change in levels of skills or knowledge, such changes do not bring about a change in attitude, and without affecting a change in attitude, a change in practice is less likely to materialise.

While commercial interests do seek a change in practice among consumers, it is a change that seldom provides the social, economic or political attention that the marginalised “I” seeks—to regain relevance, to regain control, and to be better able to influence those with “power over” their lives. Drawing from my interview-based conversations with Dorian Wilde who participated in a digital storytelling workshop that I conducted in Malaysia in 2013,

The digital storytelling workshop was one of four workshops that were conducted as part of my research strategy for my professional doctoral research entitled, “Authentically Ambiguous, Credibly Anonymous: Perceptually Reframing the Personal Narrative towards Effective Persuasion in Aggressive Human Rights Contexts”.

Dorian Wilde chose to do a digital story on “shaving”. I asked him why he chose to tell a story on “shaving”.

I explored further and asked him why particularly a Malaysian Indian barber, why not just any barber. Dorian replied.

Knowing that he is a feminist and that he has spoken up for women’s rights in various spaces and publicly on Facebook, I tried to better understand his need to be in exclusive male spaces, and he explained.

Dorian drew a distinction between “wanting to belong” and “being accepted”. What I saw as patriarchal ideology, which upheld the male privilege, he saw it merely as “an exclusive space”.

I then pressed Dorian for other examples of what he saw as “male exclusive spaces”. He gave two. The first example was on the role of the eldest son or eldest male relative in the Hindu funeral ceremony. The second was on how he would be invited to his sister’s wedding, if he would be asked to play any male role if he were invited at all. For both these examples, I questioned that exclusive male role, the overvaluing of the male and the emphasis on the man’s importance in these rituals, particularly in Hindu funeral ceremonies, where the man is given the responsibility of “ascending the dead into the next world”, as if only a man had the power to do that. Dorian agreed that women should be able to play the same role but he persisted in distinguishing such roles which if he were to play them, would be a validation that he is a man, a symbolic recognition by his family members and relatives.

Dorian who already had some level of video editing skills before he attended the workshop shared how he loves his digital story. In explaining what exactly he loved about it, he returned to his reason for wanting to tell his story on “shaving”.

Dorian’s digital story does not explicitly say that he is a transman. The question of, “how ‘useful’ is a digital story on shaving?” remains equally relevant whether he is a transman or not. While a few of Dorian’s friends expressed some level of disappointment that he was not explicit about his gender identity in his digital story, he feels that he did talk about it but in very different ways. For example, he spoke of how it was his mother who gave him his first razor. How he finally experienced the puberty he had always wanted. How it was his uncle and not his father who offered to teach him how to shave.

Dorian who uses social media a lot, has placed his digital story on both YouTube and Facebook.

Dorian’s digital story can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxGuJENUb60&list=UUk8EJRJyV_k7_KMJVICR7sg.

The change the “I” and in this case, the marginalised “I”, appears to be an internal dialogue within the “I”. Dorian subscribes to feminist principles and ideals, and yet he seeks to be accepted in all-male spaces, which can be uncomfortably too sexist for him. He sees his validation as a man in male roles that are distinctly patriarchal. He acknowledges his internal conflict but persists in making meaning for himself in seeking validation for the self from the other while insisting that his wanting validation is not about “being for the other”. Dorian’s justification is premised on non-conformity, and yet, his validation as a man buys into some patriarchal ideas of manhood. Facial hair for example, is not just that, facial hair. Instead, within his ethnic community, facial hair, in Dorian’s words, is “the signifier of whether you’re [a] man or not”. Playing socially defined male roles, which meet the expectations of a patriarchal society in retaining the gender binary, is patriarchal. If it is known that he is a transman, Dorian would be nonconforming in such patriarchal spaces even if he may be playing gender stereotypical roles. If men in their exclusive spaces without their knowledge that he is transitioning accept Dorian, to what extent would his validation be non-conforming? Dorian’s meaning making through storytelling seems to exemplify Arendt’s view that storytelling is an aspect of “the subjective in-between”.

For a more thorough anthropological discussion of Hannah Arendt’s view on storytelling, read Jackson, Michael. 2002. The politics of storytelling: Violence, transgression and intersubjectivity. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, University of Copenhagen.

The “power over” that concerns Dorian the most is that of his immediate family and relatives, that their rejection still has a hold over him, that their non-acceptance of his gender identity as a man could still hurt him.

The digital story by Dorian Wilde and his self-reflections suggest that possibly the most important change that digital storytelling mediators can help achieve, is the validation of a digital storyteller’s existential struggles. While I recognised this crucial role, at the same time, however, I found myself asking, “what is a conscious act to respond?” during an interview with Suriani Kempe, who is the Programme Manager and oversees the Advocacy Legal Service & Publication Unit of the non-governmental organization, Sisters in Islam in Malaysia.

Is a charitable act of response sufficient as change? If it is, how would a flooding of digital stories through the Internet affect such charity? Would we as receivers of these stories suffer “compassion fatigue”?

Mass media are saturated with stories and images of tragedy and suffering. These are often so decontextualised that the public is increasingly cynical of the genuineness of the depicted suffering and may even resist helping, out of fear that their kindness and generosity is being exploited. For a further reading, see for example Moeller 1999; Höijer 2004; Kinnick et al. 1996.

As digital storytelling mediators, we may have to consider that change through self-representational stories lies in a painstakingly pace of story-by-story, not one of mass scale. In validating a digital storyteller’s lived experience and choices in the telling, we help create a society that is that little bit more just and accepting, a society that will hopefully one day refuse to inflict the kind of injustices that it can and does, against the marginalised “I”.