Digital Storytelling: An Introduction

We tell stories to make sense of chaos. We come to understand the world and our places in it through these stories. And we share these stories with others, finding points of connection. Storytelling is part of who we are and, with digital media, it�s more accessible and adaptable than it has ever been.

Since emerging in the 1990s, the field of digital storytelling has centred on a single model of story creation that remains in widespread use today. However, digital media, environments and communities have changed. It�s time for the field of digital storytelling to change with them.

Digital Storytelling provides a new, cutting-edge introduction to this topic. It sets an alternative agenda for the field: one that regards digital storytelling as characterised not by any particular kind of method or output, but by ongoing processes of meaning making in digital environments. Weaving historical references throughout, this textbook illustrates the interconnectedness of media, individual experiences, and society and culture. It shows that digital storytelling is a particular context of storytelling that has emerged from a confluence of traditions and technologies forever in flux.

This original and landmark textbook is required reading for students of media, communications, sociology, cultural studies and English, as well as for anyone looking to understand the transformative power of digital storytelling in all of its forms.

Leah Henrickson is Lecturer in Digital Media and Cultures at the University of Queensland.