12 thoughts on “Digital Storytelling as a Participatory Communication Approach”
The three readings this week centered around practical applications of the digital storytelling techniques discussed in class. The first reading examined usage of digital storytelling with indigenous/ Forgotten Australians. The Forgotten Australians engaged in story circle workshops. According to the author, “the digital stories [were] a way for the participants to transfer the loss they feel into a haunting of others†(73). The researchers did encounter some issues with recording and reluctance of participants, but ultimately concluded, “Digital storytelling remains a process for exploration, to be continually opened up and examined so that it can align with the needs of its users†(74).
The second reading examined digital storytelling used with 30 young women of Puerto Rican descent. The research looked at sexual health, cultural aspects of sexual health, as well as how digital storytelling can be used as a health interventions. The digital stories elucidated a lot about the participants and their experiences, revealing issues of violence, abandonment and neglect, physical, sexual and structure violence, schooling and housing issues, healthcare, and trauma. It is clear, then, that health issues are complex and intertwined with personal experience. It is interesting to consider this as a future clinician who, for the most part, will only work with people in the short-term. There are so many personal and cultural aspects of experience, especially in marginalized groups, that a healthcare professional might not be aware of upon meeting a patient.
The final reading was very interesting to read in that it examined the process and implications of digital storytelling. According to the reading, digital storytelling is a process that can be used to “Empower participants through personal reflection, growth, and the development of new literacies; educate and raise awareness among viewing audiences about issues presented in the stories; inform public policy, advocacy, and movement building; and provide visual, narrative, and multisensory data to support public health research and evaluation efforts†(p. 1). Reading about the phases of digital storytelling was interesting because the class is currently in the midst of the final phase of this process, and I am currently in the process of making edits to my digital story. In my own personal experience, I have found the process of drafting, sharing, and recording my personal story to be empowering and revealing about my own experience as well as the experiences of my classmates in my story circle.
I found the discussion on ethical implications in the final reading thought-provoking. For example, the story of a homeless woman who participated in a storytelling workshop but ultimately dropped out was discussed, and it was proposed that this process might have been harmful for her. I never would have considered possible harm involved with sharing one’s story.
One of the other issues discussed was that of confidentiality, and the issue of anonymity. Again, this discussion was thought-provoking. If the storytellers want to share their stories and consent to sharing their stories, why can’t their identities be shared? Finally, the discussion about releasing materials was interesting, as in one case certain participants stories’ pointed at specific organizations. Thus, their stories were not released and this made it so other participants’ stories were not released.
I had never considered the ethical dimensions of storytelling, because in my mind it was a completely participant-driven and controlled process. If I were to ever use digital storytelling techniques in my future work, these ethical implications would have to be considered.
I really enjoyed this week’s readings on digital storytelling. Digital storytelling is a process that is empowering to people, especially those of marginalized communities. The process addresses the health issue at hand from the individual’s point of view and connects them to social supports and allow for them to reroute the conversation around potential stigma. When I read the second reading on sexual and reproductive health inequities in adolescent Puerto Rican women I was surprised by how many themes came up from the stories such as interpersonal violence, neglect, physical/sexual violence, structural violence and embodied trauma. Reading how embodied trauma was interpreted was very eye opening. Hearing snippets of Amara and Annalise’s stories allowed me to feel like I can hear them speaking it and also understand the situation more. This study truly makes me believe that digital storytelling is useful for the participants and society as a whole.
Also, after reading the other articles I think that I can see digital storytelling being used in a variety of different studies. My job at the health center was interested in using something like digital storytelling to show how barriers and access to resources have caused them to have trouble managing their diabetes. They were thinking of using this to get help and resources for the individuals but to also shift society’s view of thinking that people do not want to change behavior and that it is actually that they want to, they just don’t have the resources.
I have made a digital story before during undergrad and I spoke about something that was very triggering and something that made me very emotional making but at the end it was empowering to tell my own story and to be heard. Now, I am making another digital story for this class and it is also a very emotional story but I believe that it is a story that needs to be told and heard by many. I enjoy making them.
The readings this week went more in-depth regarding the use of digital storytelling and the ethical concerns we have to consider when using them. Two of the readings from this week give examples of digital storytelling workshops that were done. Through these workshops, personal stories were created that often reflected violence and trauma. The reading by Donna Hancox was particularly interesting because she shared three examples of stories that people shared in the workshop. Everyone was creating a digital story around a general topic, but their products were so different from each other. By allowing the participants the room to create the story in these different ways, they were able to create stories that were meaningful to them. They were given the power to shape their own stories, even if what they created was something that may be difficult for an audience to watch. One of the participants had been hesitant at first because they have had people come in, get a general idea of their story, and then leave to use it on some project. The difference in the case of digital storytelling was that they could choose what they share and how they share it. This made both the process of creating the story and final product something that could be beneficial to them.
The article by Gubrium, Hill, and Flicker discussed the ethics behind digital storytelling. The six common challenges they mentioned are all very important, but the one that stood out to me was the release of materials. Many digital stories that are shared are very personal. It’s important to recognize that release of materials is going to be complicated because it is not just a one time release for use of whenever. The participant may allow the story to be shared in some contexts and not others, and their decision needs to be respected when it comes to this. The final article we read for this week provided many short examples of what the girls shared in their digital stories, and it is clear how important the ethical aspects need to be taken into consideration when dealing with such sensitive topics.
Stories are a part of human nature and as we have seen from the articles, people often want to be heard. Over the summer, I was tabling at PrideFest in Chicago for the All of Us research grant. The research program wants to be inclusive and include people who have often been left out of research, including the LGBT community. I talked to many people at the table, and there were a couple of times I was surprised by people who wanted to share their health story with me. There was one man in particular who told me in detail about the health struggles he had been through and how he doesn’t want that for others, which is why he wants to see more representation in research. This was not a digital story by any means, but I think it shows how important it is for some people to be able to have someone listen to them and hear their story. He wanted to take something bad that had happened to him and turn it around into something positive.
This week’s readings were all about digital storytelling as a participatory communication approach. The first reading covered an example of using digital storytelling as a means of dealing with trauma narratives, especially among marginalized populations. Through this process the participants were able to tell their stories, in their hopes, that it may ensure that what had happened to them would never happen again. In sharing their stories, they hoped to contribute to the greater good through a potential culture shift. The author found that digital storytelling can be a tool for exploration and that it should align the needs of the users rather than being limited to the models or formulas previously associated with it. Despite this finding, the author had a line where she commented on the story of one participant and said, “Her story may not have been especially interesting or entertaining to the viewer, but it was authentic to her memories and her experiences.†This comment made me uncomfortable because digital stories should be for the benefit of the storyteller and should not be judged on entertainment value for any potential audiences. Who are “we†to decide if someone’s life and experiences are interesting or entertaining? I understand participants’ stories are often used for an intended purpose or outcome but at the end of the day it should be about their needs, wants, and experiences rather than “entertainment value.â€
The second reading discussed the idea of how digital storytelling can serve as a critical narrative intervention. The article highlighted that critical narrative intervention involves (1) “rendering otherwise discounted local knowledge as relevant by working with marginalized communities to produce their own stories,†(2) “bolstering social support and solidarity in the process,†and (3) critiquing and recalibrating damaging and disempowering conversations on social health and wellbeing, ultimately to create more supportive policies with and for marginalized communities.†Digital storytelling can empower participants and give them a sense of agency over their lives and health because this method puts them at the center of their story and values their knowledge and experiences as an expertise in itself. The authors of this article found that digital storytelling can be a tool for anti-oppression work as it helps rebalance knowledge production (less weight on academic-based and more on community-based).
The third reading discussed ethics related to digital storytelling. I liked that this article not only highlighted relevant challenges and concerns related to digital storytelling but that is then gave recommendations for ethics in practice for each challenge. Additionally, the authors’ conclusion of the importance of seeing ethics as a process involving ongoing dialogue among stakeholders was a different take than I’ve previously seen. Often ethics seems to be thought of as a box to check rather than something incorporated into ongoing practice. I like this approach because it allows room for participants and other stakeholder to help best shape a project over time. This can allow room for participants to change their minds as well as feel more comfortable sharing their thoughts after a rapport has been developed.
In the first reading, I was surprised with how emotional the section about orphaned memories was for me. Although I have no connection to the topic, I could feel the pain that must have been described in the stories. This made me think about my own digital story and how my emotions changed as I was writing it. At the beginning, I started off just telling a story about an event that happened in my life. As I was writing it, I was able to relive the experience and it brought up additional feelings and memories. I ended up using the experience in my digital story to write another paper, and realized that even though it was the same story, the emotions behind it were different. This reminded me how powerful storytelling is and how the way you frame a story can bring out very different emotions.
The second reading also made me think of my digital story because it mentioned schooling, which was what my digital story was based on. Flor and Paola’s stories made me realize how fortunate I was to be in school and have a support system throughout college. At one point in my digital story, my supervisor starts cheering because I solved a problem. Compared to Flor and Paola’s stories, I had a lot more support and it made me realize how much I took that support for granted. I think hearing other people’s stories, while considering my own story, has helped me think about things a little differently. It has redirected my thinking about my own life that I do not appreciate enough and about things that others go through. It has been interesting to be able to use other people’s stories to think about my own and how I present my story.
The section on recruitment and consent to participate in the third reading stood out to me. We have been talking about digital stories in a positive way in class and through previous readings, but it is interesting that doing a workshop could have a negative effect on someone. However, there are a lot of unexpected emotions that come with talking about past experiences, so it would make sense that this process could be negative for some people. It made me realize how many factors lead to the success of running a digital story workshop, or any workshop in general. This is something that I can relate back to audiology, because we often strive to create group activities and workshops for our patients. Our goal is to normalize hearing loss and provide information, as well as give the patients a support system, but we often have patients who do not find these activities helpful. This reading made me think about all the other factors that go into someone accepting a hearing loss and how these activities could actually be a negative experience for some people.
This week’s readings on digital storytelling as a participatory communication approach gave insight to the ways in which digital storytelling has been used in different public health setting and how they can be a potentially successful approach for health communication. This first reading, digital storytelling was used as a reflection tool for highly marginalized groups and individuals in Australia, specifically from the Historical Abuse Network which services Forgotten Australians. What really fascinated me from this paper was the vastly different attitudes, approaches, and stories that the highlighted participants exhibited. Each individual had experiences that were unique to each other as a result of their marginalization and had a different method of producing their story. One participant ended up creating three digital stories because she found her experiences to all be so profound that she could not possibly cut them out in the editing process to make a single 1-3 minute digital story. Each participant exhibited a different level of enthusiasm, experience, and even literacy. For me, this highlighted just how far-reaching this method of health communication can be for those who are experimenting with it.
In the second reading, digital storytelling was used with Puerto Rican adolescent women and addressed the sexual and reproductive inequities they endured. Participants of this research study shared personal narratives covering a variety of trauma-related topics. Although the women selected as participants for this study all shared a background as adolescent Puerto Rican women, they all had unique struggles and trauma. Though some women’s stories shared common themes, they were all personalized to each individual. In this way, the many facets of the marginalization of this population of women is exposed. Sexual and reproductive health inequities do not impact these women all in the same way; just because they have a similar ethnic background does not mean their experiences are equally similar. Using digital storytelling was a way to reveal this and highlight the may ways these women are impacted from a public health standpoint.
The final reading addressed the ethical considerations of digital storytelling. This paper was really fascinating to read after having scanned the two prior readings. In this paper, the ethical issues that may emerge from digital storytelling are explored. It highlights several instances in which digital storytelling projects have resulted in ethical debate and tension. Having read this paper now makes me feel as though I should have been reading the papers prior in a different lens. I did not consider the ethical implications that could have been present from an intervention approach such as digital storytelling, but my mind has definitely been opened to that possibility now. Being able to recognize such implications is imperative for the success of such a project.
If anything, I have learned from these readings that digital storytelling is an intervention tool that can be used with a variety of populations and in a variety of settings. It is often up to the participant to take their story in whichever direction they feel is suitable, making this approach a very personal and intimate way for people to address their trauma. A participant can be as deep or as surface level as they feel comfortable. In this way, digital storytelling seems to be an effective and engaging intervention for which participants can address their trauma with support and solidarity. That being said, when working with marginalized populations it is essential to be aware of the possible ethical considerations. As a researcher or leader of such a workshop, one must be careful to not come across as a “knower” and to pass that title to the participants. Digital storytelling is not about teaching the participants; it is about the participants teaching you.
This week’s readings focused on how digital storytelling can be used as a participatory communication approach and how powerful and impactful it can be. The first reading used digital storytelling as trauma narratives. With something as simple as storytelling, participants were in control of their narrative and had a voice. They were able to tell their story from their perspective and their experience. Many times, digital storytelling is used as a form of qualitative data collection as I learned in my Program Evaluation class and can be very effective. Reflecting on my experience with this class, I think digital storytelling is an asset and can be empowering, healing, and moving for participants. Therefore, I do not agree with the author on her views of digital storytelling being a form of entertainment value. I think it is critical to be respectful when people are sharing their vulnerability.
The second reading was about Puerto Rican adolescent women and the sexual and reproductive health inequities that they faced. Many of their experiences and stories had violence, neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and embodied trauma. The stories of these women and in relation to my experience proves how digital storytelling can be empowering and healing. It allows participants to accept what happened and to gain some closure and take control of their lives. This further proves how beneficial digital storytelling is to all different types of communities, especially marginalized communities.
Lastly, the third article addressed the challenges, concerns, and ethical issues with digital storytelling. Since most stories are very personal, what can be shared? Where is the line? Is it okay to share stories as long as identities are kept confidential? When people share stories they are being vulnerable and trusting, therefore how do you ensure their stories will be protected? This particular reading made me think of different consequences and the different ethical concerns that may arise. However, I think digital storytelling is a very effective tool and hope to use it in the future with my own Tibetan community where intergenerational trauma is quite relevant.
This week’s readings got more into the details of digital storytelling and I found the summaries of some of the stories produced in the workshops really fascinating. The first reading was questioning whether the strict structure of digital storytelling was productive for all groups. I never realized that DST had such a set way of creating them and workshopping and because of the nature of the experience I was a little surprised there was. Since DST is all about the participants and helping them get the most from the experience, I would have thought the processes would be pretty fluid in structure. It seemed that the Australians benefited from shying away from the established model for DST. The article talked about how traditional digital storytelling can sometimes not reflect the trauma of the participants if their story is directed in a certain way. The fact that the Australian participants saw their work as a way to help prevent the same trauma from happening to others and not just for their personal healing was inspiring. I liked that the author pointed out that by not following the strict structure, the stories were more authentic, “their incoherence and messiness were perhaps just as potent and as important as any of the structured, clear, and resolved digital stories created within traditional workshops.â€
The second reading focused more on how DST can be used as a critical narrative intervention. It was also mentioned that the results from DST workshops can help guide future interventions, which I had not thought of before because I have always seen DST as only for the participant. It seemed like the workshops gave back power to the women, allowing them to counteract the common stigmas they face and making them see that they are not alone. Reading about the women’s experience postpartum in the hospitals was really shocking. It’s crazy that researchers and doctors pressured them into getting LARC at such a vulnerable moment in their lives. It sounded like those people saw the women as subjects in a study rather than as human beings. It was also interesting to read about Tanya’s experience with the photo shoot. It mentioned that it seemed like this was the first time she was given the space to be excited about her pregnancy and see it as a positive. Too often people put the opinion on young moms that their pregnancy is all bad, when in fact there are many beautiful aspects to it.
The third reading focused on ethics and brought up ethical concerns that I had not thought about before when it came to DST. The six common challenges that were mentioned reminded me of the ethical concerns that are often talked about in clinical trials. I can definitely see how the power of shaping could be an issue because the facilitators know how digital stories are “supposed†to be and want to help the participants get the most out of the experience, but at what point has there been too much interference that the story is no longer truly what the participant wanted to convey? Everyone participating in DST has to be on the same page about the purpose of the workshops and their goals for it. The conversation around ethics should also be an ongoing thing that is being checked in on constantly throughout the project.
Reading through these articles I was struck by a few different things. Firstly the trauma of people’s stories, secondly an appreciation for critique and possible pitfalls of digital storytelling, and thirdly the sense of agency and healing some participants received with the digital story telling process.
The articles that shared both the young women of Puerto Rican decent and the Australian forgotten generation both captured the sheer and unsettling trauma of these people groups. Media has such a capacity for raw emotional impact on other people, and just by hearing about these individuals stories I was genuinely moved. Personal stories are excellent for teaching because the resonate with a particular human part of all of us. In classes and professional education that I have received there are still personal stories I remember even years later.
It was very interesting when the article about doing a digital story-telling workshop for the Australian forgotten generation mentioned the challenges that it faced. These stories were unlike the facilitators had imaged a “digital story” to be like mainly because of the chaos narrative of participants. Difficulty remembering past events and lower than average literacy levels among certain participants also contributed to a different kind of digital story workshop than the facilitators had run prior. The third article brought out a broader level of thinking by examining the ethical concepts that go into digital story projects for disadvantaged people groups.
The power of sharing their story in such a tangible way creates room for healing, understanding, and growth for certain participants. I can not tell you the amount of patients in my work as a nurse who merely want to talk to me about their whole life story. People seem to have an innate desire to share what has brought them to this point of illness in their life both in the physical and mental sense. Though this is not a process for every person who has experienced trauma and though great thought and caution should be exercised when any intervention for disadvantaged people groups is created, being able to offer agency and power to people through stories holds a lot of hope in working with and for the benefit of vulnerable populations.
The three readings for this week included different examples of how investigators have used digital storytelling in their research or activism. These readings improved my understanding of the method of digital storytelling. It was especially helpful to have examples of successful projects along with examples of potential limitations of the technique and the ethical concerns that can arise.
The author of the first reading used a case study to highlight the challenges when using digital storytelling as a method to help marginalized cohorts tell their stories. The author described how the current conventions for how to run a series of digital storytelling workshops might not work at all depending on the backgrounds and preferences of the participants. One of the most memorable parts of the article for me was the description of why the participants in this particular project did not want to share their stories in a story circle. I hadn’t thought about the fact that if participants see their stories as currency, they may not trust the other participants enough to share their stories. That idea connected with the discussion in the third article about the ethics of distributing stories widely. It seems that careful thought is warranted before distributing digital stories to the public, as it may sometimes provide more harm than good. This first case study highlighted the need for digital storytelling projects to be flexible and accommodate the evolving needs and desires of the participants.
I liked that the second reading described a way to use a series of digital storytelling workshops as both an intervention to help participants and also as a method of gathering data for future research on the topic. I have been thinking about the potential of conducting digital storytelling workshops with people who have chronic Lyme Disease, and I think the protocol described in this article might work for that application. It was interesting to read how data collection was woven throughout the workshop in the form of researcher notes and then follow-up interviews with participants after their digital story was complete. The results section included memorable examples for each theme and strengthened the case that this type of intervention provides valuable data for researchers/activists. The stories related to healthcare professionals pressuring the young women to go on long-acting reversible contraception immediately after giving birth were an especially powerful example of structural violence. The results also emphasized how this type of intervention can help the storytellers themselves. Fostering a safe space for story circles and including opportunities like having professional photographs taken can help the participants feel celebrated and supported.
I appreciated the discussion of ethics in the third article. It touched on some of the topics that I had been wondering about as we started to discuss using digital storytelling as an intervention. Digital storytelling can be used to build more ethical relationships between the participants and the broader community, but workshop facilitators have to be careful not to focus too much on the end product. It seems vital to stay focused on the process and continually check in with participants about whether or not their story should be shared publicly after the workshop. It’s important to be aware of the power dynamics at play and acknowledge that the workshop facilitator is shaping participants’ stories. The facilitator may feel compelled to intervene to help the participants think critically about the potential for their stories to perpetuate harmful stereotypes. This article highlighted how digital storytelling workshops can include difficult ethical dilemmas that fall outside the scope of standard research ethics conversations.
This week’s readings centered on using digital storytelling as a public health intervention. One reading focused on the ethical concerns of using DST. One concern that stuck out to me was “recruitment and consent to participate.” I appreciated Aline’s candidness when discussing the inclusion of a participant who was experiencing homelessness. In most of the journal articles I have read, authors are unlikely to discuss their own mistakes, even when they could be a great opportunity to educate readers. The section on confidentiality also reminded me of an embarrassing experience I had in high school, when a project that included my voice was used in following years as an example of what NOT to do. Because of my distinctive voice, many of my peers informed me that they had seen my project and that my teacher had discussed it negatively without my knowledge or consent. However, I also see the benefit to using an individual’s own voice in their story; it provides authentic emotion and allows for ownership of their work.
The next article I read was about using DST with individuals who identify as Forgotten Australians. I was struck by the lack of information about their own lives that we often take for granted- for example, knowing your birthday or having photos from your childhood. I found it interesting that the authors concluded that the stories were like “ghosts,” intended to “haunt” viewers. I wonder if this is accurate to how the participants felt- that they were inflicting their sadness and pain among others- or if they found the stories to be a more positive experience.
Lastly, I read the article about using DST with Puerto Rican women. I found this article the most helpful, as it helped me to finally understand how DST can be used to conduct research. It amazed me how similar the women’s life experiences were, even though they each had their own individual stories. In particular, I was surprised by the amount of intergenerational trauma. It was powerful to see how the method of DST allowed the women to unpack their experiences of violence and trauma, and provided them a way to take back control of their experiences and their bodies. I am interested to know more about what happened to the participants after the workshops. Were they provided resources to help continue their journey of healing?
This week’s readings talked about the use of digital storytelling as a method of participatory communication. The first reading covered a 2009 digital storytelling project in Australia. The author talks about her experience facilitating the project with the Micah Projects. I thought it was really interesting that the participants engaged in a “story circle” much like the one we did in class. It looks like this was a really good way for them to share the thoughts and feelings that many of them were holding onto for several years. Much like what we have been learning in class, digital storytelling is a way to share one’s experiences in a visual way that can almost be therapeutic for the person who is sharing and can have the ability to evoke an emotional response from the viewers. An example of this can be seen when the author talks about Simon’s digital story, and how it was “extremely disturbing and unsettling to watch”.
The second reading talked about the project “Let’s Talk About Sex: Storytelling with Puerto Rican Latina Youth”, which has been discussed in class previously. The authors argue that digital storytelling can serve as a critical narrative intervention. It allows participants to share their stories and can simultaneously process traumatic events that may have occurred in their lives. It can help find others who might be going through similar experiences and can build solidarity and a support system. This particular reading made me think about my own digital story, and how it has helped me grow as a person and connect with my group members. Although it was difficult to be vulnerable, I found that it was very helpful to share our stories with each other. It allowed us to continue the conversation beyond our digital stories, and create a conversation that might not have happened otherwise.
The final reading discussed the challenges, concerns, and ethical issues that arise during a digital storytelling project. It makes the reader think about the extent to which something is shared, and whether there are boundaries involved when it comes to sharing. It also discusses confidentiality, and whether it is appropriate to share an individual’s story if their identity is concealed. I believe that all of these issues are very important to address. Although digital storytelling can be a cathartic experience, it can also be a very emotional one. When doing a digital storytelling project or workshop, it is important for us to create a space that is safe for the people who are sharing. There needs to be a notion of trust and responsibility.
The three readings this week centered around practical applications of the digital storytelling techniques discussed in class. The first reading examined usage of digital storytelling with indigenous/ Forgotten Australians. The Forgotten Australians engaged in story circle workshops. According to the author, “the digital stories [were] a way for the participants to transfer the loss they feel into a haunting of others†(73). The researchers did encounter some issues with recording and reluctance of participants, but ultimately concluded, “Digital storytelling remains a process for exploration, to be continually opened up and examined so that it can align with the needs of its users†(74).
The second reading examined digital storytelling used with 30 young women of Puerto Rican descent. The research looked at sexual health, cultural aspects of sexual health, as well as how digital storytelling can be used as a health interventions. The digital stories elucidated a lot about the participants and their experiences, revealing issues of violence, abandonment and neglect, physical, sexual and structure violence, schooling and housing issues, healthcare, and trauma. It is clear, then, that health issues are complex and intertwined with personal experience. It is interesting to consider this as a future clinician who, for the most part, will only work with people in the short-term. There are so many personal and cultural aspects of experience, especially in marginalized groups, that a healthcare professional might not be aware of upon meeting a patient.
The final reading was very interesting to read in that it examined the process and implications of digital storytelling. According to the reading, digital storytelling is a process that can be used to “Empower participants through personal reflection, growth, and the development of new literacies; educate and raise awareness among viewing audiences about issues presented in the stories; inform public policy, advocacy, and movement building; and provide visual, narrative, and multisensory data to support public health research and evaluation efforts†(p. 1). Reading about the phases of digital storytelling was interesting because the class is currently in the midst of the final phase of this process, and I am currently in the process of making edits to my digital story. In my own personal experience, I have found the process of drafting, sharing, and recording my personal story to be empowering and revealing about my own experience as well as the experiences of my classmates in my story circle.
I found the discussion on ethical implications in the final reading thought-provoking. For example, the story of a homeless woman who participated in a storytelling workshop but ultimately dropped out was discussed, and it was proposed that this process might have been harmful for her. I never would have considered possible harm involved with sharing one’s story.
One of the other issues discussed was that of confidentiality, and the issue of anonymity. Again, this discussion was thought-provoking. If the storytellers want to share their stories and consent to sharing their stories, why can’t their identities be shared? Finally, the discussion about releasing materials was interesting, as in one case certain participants stories’ pointed at specific organizations. Thus, their stories were not released and this made it so other participants’ stories were not released.
I had never considered the ethical dimensions of storytelling, because in my mind it was a completely participant-driven and controlled process. If I were to ever use digital storytelling techniques in my future work, these ethical implications would have to be considered.
I really enjoyed this week’s readings on digital storytelling. Digital storytelling is a process that is empowering to people, especially those of marginalized communities. The process addresses the health issue at hand from the individual’s point of view and connects them to social supports and allow for them to reroute the conversation around potential stigma. When I read the second reading on sexual and reproductive health inequities in adolescent Puerto Rican women I was surprised by how many themes came up from the stories such as interpersonal violence, neglect, physical/sexual violence, structural violence and embodied trauma. Reading how embodied trauma was interpreted was very eye opening. Hearing snippets of Amara and Annalise’s stories allowed me to feel like I can hear them speaking it and also understand the situation more. This study truly makes me believe that digital storytelling is useful for the participants and society as a whole.
Also, after reading the other articles I think that I can see digital storytelling being used in a variety of different studies. My job at the health center was interested in using something like digital storytelling to show how barriers and access to resources have caused them to have trouble managing their diabetes. They were thinking of using this to get help and resources for the individuals but to also shift society’s view of thinking that people do not want to change behavior and that it is actually that they want to, they just don’t have the resources.
I have made a digital story before during undergrad and I spoke about something that was very triggering and something that made me very emotional making but at the end it was empowering to tell my own story and to be heard. Now, I am making another digital story for this class and it is also a very emotional story but I believe that it is a story that needs to be told and heard by many. I enjoy making them.
The readings this week went more in-depth regarding the use of digital storytelling and the ethical concerns we have to consider when using them. Two of the readings from this week give examples of digital storytelling workshops that were done. Through these workshops, personal stories were created that often reflected violence and trauma. The reading by Donna Hancox was particularly interesting because she shared three examples of stories that people shared in the workshop. Everyone was creating a digital story around a general topic, but their products were so different from each other. By allowing the participants the room to create the story in these different ways, they were able to create stories that were meaningful to them. They were given the power to shape their own stories, even if what they created was something that may be difficult for an audience to watch. One of the participants had been hesitant at first because they have had people come in, get a general idea of their story, and then leave to use it on some project. The difference in the case of digital storytelling was that they could choose what they share and how they share it. This made both the process of creating the story and final product something that could be beneficial to them.
The article by Gubrium, Hill, and Flicker discussed the ethics behind digital storytelling. The six common challenges they mentioned are all very important, but the one that stood out to me was the release of materials. Many digital stories that are shared are very personal. It’s important to recognize that release of materials is going to be complicated because it is not just a one time release for use of whenever. The participant may allow the story to be shared in some contexts and not others, and their decision needs to be respected when it comes to this. The final article we read for this week provided many short examples of what the girls shared in their digital stories, and it is clear how important the ethical aspects need to be taken into consideration when dealing with such sensitive topics.
Stories are a part of human nature and as we have seen from the articles, people often want to be heard. Over the summer, I was tabling at PrideFest in Chicago for the All of Us research grant. The research program wants to be inclusive and include people who have often been left out of research, including the LGBT community. I talked to many people at the table, and there were a couple of times I was surprised by people who wanted to share their health story with me. There was one man in particular who told me in detail about the health struggles he had been through and how he doesn’t want that for others, which is why he wants to see more representation in research. This was not a digital story by any means, but I think it shows how important it is for some people to be able to have someone listen to them and hear their story. He wanted to take something bad that had happened to him and turn it around into something positive.
This week’s readings were all about digital storytelling as a participatory communication approach. The first reading covered an example of using digital storytelling as a means of dealing with trauma narratives, especially among marginalized populations. Through this process the participants were able to tell their stories, in their hopes, that it may ensure that what had happened to them would never happen again. In sharing their stories, they hoped to contribute to the greater good through a potential culture shift. The author found that digital storytelling can be a tool for exploration and that it should align the needs of the users rather than being limited to the models or formulas previously associated with it. Despite this finding, the author had a line where she commented on the story of one participant and said, “Her story may not have been especially interesting or entertaining to the viewer, but it was authentic to her memories and her experiences.†This comment made me uncomfortable because digital stories should be for the benefit of the storyteller and should not be judged on entertainment value for any potential audiences. Who are “we†to decide if someone’s life and experiences are interesting or entertaining? I understand participants’ stories are often used for an intended purpose or outcome but at the end of the day it should be about their needs, wants, and experiences rather than “entertainment value.â€
The second reading discussed the idea of how digital storytelling can serve as a critical narrative intervention. The article highlighted that critical narrative intervention involves (1) “rendering otherwise discounted local knowledge as relevant by working with marginalized communities to produce their own stories,†(2) “bolstering social support and solidarity in the process,†and (3) critiquing and recalibrating damaging and disempowering conversations on social health and wellbeing, ultimately to create more supportive policies with and for marginalized communities.†Digital storytelling can empower participants and give them a sense of agency over their lives and health because this method puts them at the center of their story and values their knowledge and experiences as an expertise in itself. The authors of this article found that digital storytelling can be a tool for anti-oppression work as it helps rebalance knowledge production (less weight on academic-based and more on community-based).
The third reading discussed ethics related to digital storytelling. I liked that this article not only highlighted relevant challenges and concerns related to digital storytelling but that is then gave recommendations for ethics in practice for each challenge. Additionally, the authors’ conclusion of the importance of seeing ethics as a process involving ongoing dialogue among stakeholders was a different take than I’ve previously seen. Often ethics seems to be thought of as a box to check rather than something incorporated into ongoing practice. I like this approach because it allows room for participants and other stakeholder to help best shape a project over time. This can allow room for participants to change their minds as well as feel more comfortable sharing their thoughts after a rapport has been developed.
In the first reading, I was surprised with how emotional the section about orphaned memories was for me. Although I have no connection to the topic, I could feel the pain that must have been described in the stories. This made me think about my own digital story and how my emotions changed as I was writing it. At the beginning, I started off just telling a story about an event that happened in my life. As I was writing it, I was able to relive the experience and it brought up additional feelings and memories. I ended up using the experience in my digital story to write another paper, and realized that even though it was the same story, the emotions behind it were different. This reminded me how powerful storytelling is and how the way you frame a story can bring out very different emotions.
The second reading also made me think of my digital story because it mentioned schooling, which was what my digital story was based on. Flor and Paola’s stories made me realize how fortunate I was to be in school and have a support system throughout college. At one point in my digital story, my supervisor starts cheering because I solved a problem. Compared to Flor and Paola’s stories, I had a lot more support and it made me realize how much I took that support for granted. I think hearing other people’s stories, while considering my own story, has helped me think about things a little differently. It has redirected my thinking about my own life that I do not appreciate enough and about things that others go through. It has been interesting to be able to use other people’s stories to think about my own and how I present my story.
The section on recruitment and consent to participate in the third reading stood out to me. We have been talking about digital stories in a positive way in class and through previous readings, but it is interesting that doing a workshop could have a negative effect on someone. However, there are a lot of unexpected emotions that come with talking about past experiences, so it would make sense that this process could be negative for some people. It made me realize how many factors lead to the success of running a digital story workshop, or any workshop in general. This is something that I can relate back to audiology, because we often strive to create group activities and workshops for our patients. Our goal is to normalize hearing loss and provide information, as well as give the patients a support system, but we often have patients who do not find these activities helpful. This reading made me think about all the other factors that go into someone accepting a hearing loss and how these activities could actually be a negative experience for some people.
This week’s readings on digital storytelling as a participatory communication approach gave insight to the ways in which digital storytelling has been used in different public health setting and how they can be a potentially successful approach for health communication. This first reading, digital storytelling was used as a reflection tool for highly marginalized groups and individuals in Australia, specifically from the Historical Abuse Network which services Forgotten Australians. What really fascinated me from this paper was the vastly different attitudes, approaches, and stories that the highlighted participants exhibited. Each individual had experiences that were unique to each other as a result of their marginalization and had a different method of producing their story. One participant ended up creating three digital stories because she found her experiences to all be so profound that she could not possibly cut them out in the editing process to make a single 1-3 minute digital story. Each participant exhibited a different level of enthusiasm, experience, and even literacy. For me, this highlighted just how far-reaching this method of health communication can be for those who are experimenting with it.
In the second reading, digital storytelling was used with Puerto Rican adolescent women and addressed the sexual and reproductive inequities they endured. Participants of this research study shared personal narratives covering a variety of trauma-related topics. Although the women selected as participants for this study all shared a background as adolescent Puerto Rican women, they all had unique struggles and trauma. Though some women’s stories shared common themes, they were all personalized to each individual. In this way, the many facets of the marginalization of this population of women is exposed. Sexual and reproductive health inequities do not impact these women all in the same way; just because they have a similar ethnic background does not mean their experiences are equally similar. Using digital storytelling was a way to reveal this and highlight the may ways these women are impacted from a public health standpoint.
The final reading addressed the ethical considerations of digital storytelling. This paper was really fascinating to read after having scanned the two prior readings. In this paper, the ethical issues that may emerge from digital storytelling are explored. It highlights several instances in which digital storytelling projects have resulted in ethical debate and tension. Having read this paper now makes me feel as though I should have been reading the papers prior in a different lens. I did not consider the ethical implications that could have been present from an intervention approach such as digital storytelling, but my mind has definitely been opened to that possibility now. Being able to recognize such implications is imperative for the success of such a project.
If anything, I have learned from these readings that digital storytelling is an intervention tool that can be used with a variety of populations and in a variety of settings. It is often up to the participant to take their story in whichever direction they feel is suitable, making this approach a very personal and intimate way for people to address their trauma. A participant can be as deep or as surface level as they feel comfortable. In this way, digital storytelling seems to be an effective and engaging intervention for which participants can address their trauma with support and solidarity. That being said, when working with marginalized populations it is essential to be aware of the possible ethical considerations. As a researcher or leader of such a workshop, one must be careful to not come across as a “knower” and to pass that title to the participants. Digital storytelling is not about teaching the participants; it is about the participants teaching you.
This week’s readings focused on how digital storytelling can be used as a participatory communication approach and how powerful and impactful it can be. The first reading used digital storytelling as trauma narratives. With something as simple as storytelling, participants were in control of their narrative and had a voice. They were able to tell their story from their perspective and their experience. Many times, digital storytelling is used as a form of qualitative data collection as I learned in my Program Evaluation class and can be very effective. Reflecting on my experience with this class, I think digital storytelling is an asset and can be empowering, healing, and moving for participants. Therefore, I do not agree with the author on her views of digital storytelling being a form of entertainment value. I think it is critical to be respectful when people are sharing their vulnerability.
The second reading was about Puerto Rican adolescent women and the sexual and reproductive health inequities that they faced. Many of their experiences and stories had violence, neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and embodied trauma. The stories of these women and in relation to my experience proves how digital storytelling can be empowering and healing. It allows participants to accept what happened and to gain some closure and take control of their lives. This further proves how beneficial digital storytelling is to all different types of communities, especially marginalized communities.
Lastly, the third article addressed the challenges, concerns, and ethical issues with digital storytelling. Since most stories are very personal, what can be shared? Where is the line? Is it okay to share stories as long as identities are kept confidential? When people share stories they are being vulnerable and trusting, therefore how do you ensure their stories will be protected? This particular reading made me think of different consequences and the different ethical concerns that may arise. However, I think digital storytelling is a very effective tool and hope to use it in the future with my own Tibetan community where intergenerational trauma is quite relevant.
This week’s readings got more into the details of digital storytelling and I found the summaries of some of the stories produced in the workshops really fascinating. The first reading was questioning whether the strict structure of digital storytelling was productive for all groups. I never realized that DST had such a set way of creating them and workshopping and because of the nature of the experience I was a little surprised there was. Since DST is all about the participants and helping them get the most from the experience, I would have thought the processes would be pretty fluid in structure. It seemed that the Australians benefited from shying away from the established model for DST. The article talked about how traditional digital storytelling can sometimes not reflect the trauma of the participants if their story is directed in a certain way. The fact that the Australian participants saw their work as a way to help prevent the same trauma from happening to others and not just for their personal healing was inspiring. I liked that the author pointed out that by not following the strict structure, the stories were more authentic, “their incoherence and messiness were perhaps just as potent and as important as any of the structured, clear, and resolved digital stories created within traditional workshops.â€
The second reading focused more on how DST can be used as a critical narrative intervention. It was also mentioned that the results from DST workshops can help guide future interventions, which I had not thought of before because I have always seen DST as only for the participant. It seemed like the workshops gave back power to the women, allowing them to counteract the common stigmas they face and making them see that they are not alone. Reading about the women’s experience postpartum in the hospitals was really shocking. It’s crazy that researchers and doctors pressured them into getting LARC at such a vulnerable moment in their lives. It sounded like those people saw the women as subjects in a study rather than as human beings. It was also interesting to read about Tanya’s experience with the photo shoot. It mentioned that it seemed like this was the first time she was given the space to be excited about her pregnancy and see it as a positive. Too often people put the opinion on young moms that their pregnancy is all bad, when in fact there are many beautiful aspects to it.
The third reading focused on ethics and brought up ethical concerns that I had not thought about before when it came to DST. The six common challenges that were mentioned reminded me of the ethical concerns that are often talked about in clinical trials. I can definitely see how the power of shaping could be an issue because the facilitators know how digital stories are “supposed†to be and want to help the participants get the most out of the experience, but at what point has there been too much interference that the story is no longer truly what the participant wanted to convey? Everyone participating in DST has to be on the same page about the purpose of the workshops and their goals for it. The conversation around ethics should also be an ongoing thing that is being checked in on constantly throughout the project.
Reading through these articles I was struck by a few different things. Firstly the trauma of people’s stories, secondly an appreciation for critique and possible pitfalls of digital storytelling, and thirdly the sense of agency and healing some participants received with the digital story telling process.
The articles that shared both the young women of Puerto Rican decent and the Australian forgotten generation both captured the sheer and unsettling trauma of these people groups. Media has such a capacity for raw emotional impact on other people, and just by hearing about these individuals stories I was genuinely moved. Personal stories are excellent for teaching because the resonate with a particular human part of all of us. In classes and professional education that I have received there are still personal stories I remember even years later.
It was very interesting when the article about doing a digital story-telling workshop for the Australian forgotten generation mentioned the challenges that it faced. These stories were unlike the facilitators had imaged a “digital story” to be like mainly because of the chaos narrative of participants. Difficulty remembering past events and lower than average literacy levels among certain participants also contributed to a different kind of digital story workshop than the facilitators had run prior. The third article brought out a broader level of thinking by examining the ethical concepts that go into digital story projects for disadvantaged people groups.
The power of sharing their story in such a tangible way creates room for healing, understanding, and growth for certain participants. I can not tell you the amount of patients in my work as a nurse who merely want to talk to me about their whole life story. People seem to have an innate desire to share what has brought them to this point of illness in their life both in the physical and mental sense. Though this is not a process for every person who has experienced trauma and though great thought and caution should be exercised when any intervention for disadvantaged people groups is created, being able to offer agency and power to people through stories holds a lot of hope in working with and for the benefit of vulnerable populations.
The three readings for this week included different examples of how investigators have used digital storytelling in their research or activism. These readings improved my understanding of the method of digital storytelling. It was especially helpful to have examples of successful projects along with examples of potential limitations of the technique and the ethical concerns that can arise.
The author of the first reading used a case study to highlight the challenges when using digital storytelling as a method to help marginalized cohorts tell their stories. The author described how the current conventions for how to run a series of digital storytelling workshops might not work at all depending on the backgrounds and preferences of the participants. One of the most memorable parts of the article for me was the description of why the participants in this particular project did not want to share their stories in a story circle. I hadn’t thought about the fact that if participants see their stories as currency, they may not trust the other participants enough to share their stories. That idea connected with the discussion in the third article about the ethics of distributing stories widely. It seems that careful thought is warranted before distributing digital stories to the public, as it may sometimes provide more harm than good. This first case study highlighted the need for digital storytelling projects to be flexible and accommodate the evolving needs and desires of the participants.
I liked that the second reading described a way to use a series of digital storytelling workshops as both an intervention to help participants and also as a method of gathering data for future research on the topic. I have been thinking about the potential of conducting digital storytelling workshops with people who have chronic Lyme Disease, and I think the protocol described in this article might work for that application. It was interesting to read how data collection was woven throughout the workshop in the form of researcher notes and then follow-up interviews with participants after their digital story was complete. The results section included memorable examples for each theme and strengthened the case that this type of intervention provides valuable data for researchers/activists. The stories related to healthcare professionals pressuring the young women to go on long-acting reversible contraception immediately after giving birth were an especially powerful example of structural violence. The results also emphasized how this type of intervention can help the storytellers themselves. Fostering a safe space for story circles and including opportunities like having professional photographs taken can help the participants feel celebrated and supported.
I appreciated the discussion of ethics in the third article. It touched on some of the topics that I had been wondering about as we started to discuss using digital storytelling as an intervention. Digital storytelling can be used to build more ethical relationships between the participants and the broader community, but workshop facilitators have to be careful not to focus too much on the end product. It seems vital to stay focused on the process and continually check in with participants about whether or not their story should be shared publicly after the workshop. It’s important to be aware of the power dynamics at play and acknowledge that the workshop facilitator is shaping participants’ stories. The facilitator may feel compelled to intervene to help the participants think critically about the potential for their stories to perpetuate harmful stereotypes. This article highlighted how digital storytelling workshops can include difficult ethical dilemmas that fall outside the scope of standard research ethics conversations.
This week’s readings centered on using digital storytelling as a public health intervention. One reading focused on the ethical concerns of using DST. One concern that stuck out to me was “recruitment and consent to participate.” I appreciated Aline’s candidness when discussing the inclusion of a participant who was experiencing homelessness. In most of the journal articles I have read, authors are unlikely to discuss their own mistakes, even when they could be a great opportunity to educate readers. The section on confidentiality also reminded me of an embarrassing experience I had in high school, when a project that included my voice was used in following years as an example of what NOT to do. Because of my distinctive voice, many of my peers informed me that they had seen my project and that my teacher had discussed it negatively without my knowledge or consent. However, I also see the benefit to using an individual’s own voice in their story; it provides authentic emotion and allows for ownership of their work.
The next article I read was about using DST with individuals who identify as Forgotten Australians. I was struck by the lack of information about their own lives that we often take for granted- for example, knowing your birthday or having photos from your childhood. I found it interesting that the authors concluded that the stories were like “ghosts,” intended to “haunt” viewers. I wonder if this is accurate to how the participants felt- that they were inflicting their sadness and pain among others- or if they found the stories to be a more positive experience.
Lastly, I read the article about using DST with Puerto Rican women. I found this article the most helpful, as it helped me to finally understand how DST can be used to conduct research. It amazed me how similar the women’s life experiences were, even though they each had their own individual stories. In particular, I was surprised by the amount of intergenerational trauma. It was powerful to see how the method of DST allowed the women to unpack their experiences of violence and trauma, and provided them a way to take back control of their experiences and their bodies. I am interested to know more about what happened to the participants after the workshops. Were they provided resources to help continue their journey of healing?
This week’s readings talked about the use of digital storytelling as a method of participatory communication. The first reading covered a 2009 digital storytelling project in Australia. The author talks about her experience facilitating the project with the Micah Projects. I thought it was really interesting that the participants engaged in a “story circle” much like the one we did in class. It looks like this was a really good way for them to share the thoughts and feelings that many of them were holding onto for several years. Much like what we have been learning in class, digital storytelling is a way to share one’s experiences in a visual way that can almost be therapeutic for the person who is sharing and can have the ability to evoke an emotional response from the viewers. An example of this can be seen when the author talks about Simon’s digital story, and how it was “extremely disturbing and unsettling to watch”.
The second reading talked about the project “Let’s Talk About Sex: Storytelling with Puerto Rican Latina Youth”, which has been discussed in class previously. The authors argue that digital storytelling can serve as a critical narrative intervention. It allows participants to share their stories and can simultaneously process traumatic events that may have occurred in their lives. It can help find others who might be going through similar experiences and can build solidarity and a support system. This particular reading made me think about my own digital story, and how it has helped me grow as a person and connect with my group members. Although it was difficult to be vulnerable, I found that it was very helpful to share our stories with each other. It allowed us to continue the conversation beyond our digital stories, and create a conversation that might not have happened otherwise.
The final reading discussed the challenges, concerns, and ethical issues that arise during a digital storytelling project. It makes the reader think about the extent to which something is shared, and whether there are boundaries involved when it comes to sharing. It also discusses confidentiality, and whether it is appropriate to share an individual’s story if their identity is concealed. I believe that all of these issues are very important to address. Although digital storytelling can be a cathartic experience, it can also be a very emotional one. When doing a digital storytelling project or workshop, it is important for us to create a space that is safe for the people who are sharing. There needs to be a notion of trust and responsibility.