Category: response

Weekly Reflection: Getting Farther Away From the Campfire

256px-Campfire_Pinecone(Photo by Emeldil at English Wikipedia [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

In chapter 3 of Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives, Creating Community, author Joe Lambert discusses a live stage project of one of his collaborators, Dana Atchley.  In 1990, Atchley began performing a one-person show in his San Fransisco studio called Next Exit,  a guided tour of his life traveling across the United States.  Part of his performance involved a campfire, or more specifically, the image of a campfire on a video monitor.  Atchley would tell stories about meeting “offbeat Americans” and interact with video segments projected on a backdrop.   This metaphor made me think of the times I would be with fellow campers, camp councilors or friends and there would be an exchange of stories near the fire.

In recent years, however, I feel that I am getting farther and farther away from that friendly circle of warmth.  I’ve worked a variety of temporary, seasonal, and part-time jobs since getting laid off from my full-time employer in 2010.  What’s worse, that was the third layoff from a full-time job I’ve had to endure since 2003.  During this time of economic uncertainly, my relationships with work colleagues and friends have weakened.  The shame of not having a steady job makes a person withdraw.  I have two part-time jobs now, but there are semester-dependent positions through higher education institutions.  Come mid-May, I may have to find some other steady work as a source of income.  This employment instability, constant job-searching and feeling of embarrassment has kept me from coming closer to the campfire.

To a certain extent, being enrolled in graduate school has improved my self-esteem and given me a better idea of a possible career track.  The total online nature (and dramatic lack interpersonal engagement) of the Information and Learning Technologies program, however, is giving me some off-campus blues.  WordPress blogging, Twitter exchanges and Zoom meetings are useful, but there’s still a great distance between the “camper” and the “campfire”.  Plus, it seems I am not the only person in my INTE5340 class that has succumbed to disengagement.

Truly, I do want to get closer to the campfire and engage again with my friends, former coworkers and current students.  My fear is that even if I talk, will anyone really listen?  I hope so.

 

 

Scholarly Response: “Who is Trying To Destroy Digital Storytelling?”

Every week when I conduct a Google search to find articles on “digital storytelling”, I come up with a variety of links.  At the top of the search page came this piece posted yesterday: “Who is Trying To Destroy Digital Storytelling?”   It comes from a website created by a Boston-area digital marketing firm called Skyword.   Personally, I’m a little suspicious of for-profit organizations that describe digital storytelling in terms of “brands”, “markets” and “entertaining experiences.”  I’ve come to believe that true storytelling should be influenced by factors such as personal desires rather than corporate profits.

Still, I decided to delve into the reading.  The author, a content marketing specialist named John Montesi, gives some compelling examples of well-know tech companies making investments and taking risks in far away lands to give people an opportunity to tell their stories online.   Montesi cites YouTube’s relaunch in Pakistan to meet the government’s rules about illegal content while striving to ensure that the citizens there still have an opportunity to upload and view content.   In addition, Montesi mentions Twitter’s battle with ISIS after it shut down many terror-related accounts.  It’s a tightrope that Twitter must balance between confronting the promotion of terrorism but not to the point where the company denies account users’ rights to freedom of expression.  Much of the article praises the efforts of these social media companies dealing with very tighly-controlled governments and radical organizations.  I wish Montesi would have said something about how many of these same companies are blocked completely in China.  I guess that will be something for another article.

Much of what is considered digital storytelling, whether for-profit or non-profit, would not be possible without the efforts and investment of companies such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.  Definitely something we should all “Like.”