The Seven Elements of Digital Storytelling.
Pain - a digital story by Anh Vuong
Honestly, I have mix feelings while reading Knut Lundby’s Digital Storytelling.
Chapter 6“Mediatized Lives: Autobiography & Assumed Authenticity
in Digital Storytelling” rises
the issue of whether this new social media, digital storytelling truly
“represents the personality and identity of its [human] creator” while seeking
to make its thematic messages appeal to many viewers (Lundby 106). As seen in
the given video links, the style of digital storytelling is quite standardized,
for all include dialogue, non-diegetic music, and transitioning photos. So most
digital stories seem to follow the same format in narrative, editing, and sound
to better grasp the viewer’s attention. Following this logic, there is the
possibility of the creator’s life story being glamorized and altered for
entertainment purposes. Hence, digital stories on YouTube that do not have
catchy narratives, soundtracks, and images or good sound and image quality
would most likely have fewer viewers. And this would make the creator’s life
story less comprehensible and shared to other individuals who might have
undergone similar life situations.
However, I somewhat view this question of whether digital storytelling is authentic storytelling, not quite relevant because there are many other forms of expansive media like feature-length films, art, and written autobiographies whose details can be tweaked for entertainment purposes. For example, there is Sean Penn’s film, Into the Wild (2007) that includes various flashbacks and music scores to present the life, Christopher McCandless as adventurous and spiritual. Likewise, the second digital story above uses music scores and images of concrete sidewalks to further tell the depressing story of an Asian-American girl and her father. But sure, one is uses more technical the other, but in either case, the presentation of the narrative is influenced by various film techniques (sound, editing, mise-en-scene, cinematography) to better appeal to the audience’s emotions. So I don’t really know where the authors, Lundby and Hertzberg was going with this idea because when you think about it, most stories founded in media is exaggerated and altered to some degree to go beyond reality.
However, I somewhat view this question of whether digital storytelling is authentic storytelling, not quite relevant because there are many other forms of expansive media like feature-length films, art, and written autobiographies whose details can be tweaked for entertainment purposes. For example, there is Sean Penn’s film, Into the Wild (2007) that includes various flashbacks and music scores to present the life, Christopher McCandless as adventurous and spiritual. Likewise, the second digital story above uses music scores and images of concrete sidewalks to further tell the depressing story of an Asian-American girl and her father. But sure, one is uses more technical the other, but in either case, the presentation of the narrative is influenced by various film techniques (sound, editing, mise-en-scene, cinematography) to better appeal to the audience’s emotions. So I don’t really know where the authors, Lundby and Hertzberg was going with this idea because when you think about it, most stories founded in media is exaggerated and altered to some degree to go beyond reality.
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