As communicators, we are deeply embedded in the act and art of storytelling. The rise of social media and digital and web-based technologies is pushing the “story" into new shapes, forms and directions that allow for multiple perspectives, real-time dialog, audience participation, and in many cases, social change. We host Aaron Goodman, documentary maker, multimedia producer and founder of StoryTurns, to explore opportunities to support individuals to share compelling first-person stories. Learn more about collaborative and supportive workshops that allow organizations to harness stories that can serve as powerful tools for change.

1. E VE N I N G R O U N D S VO L . 1 5
Digital
Storytelling
SPEAKER Aaron Goodman
MARCH 18, 2014

2. StoryTurns:
Digital Storytelling
1. Creating stories in the
digital age
2. Inspiration: First person
stories about health
3. What is a Digital Story?
4. Types of Digital Stories
5. How to create
compelling Digital
Stories?
(7 Elements)

3. 6. StoryTurns workshops
7. Tools for content
production
8. How to find, educate
and encourage
potential participants?
9. Ethics & Care
10. What impacts can
Digital Storytelling
have?
11. Is it therapeutic?
12. Digital Stories about
health
13. Discussion and
questions

4. 1. Creating stories in
the digital age
115 million active
Twitterers each month
1.23 billion Facebook
users
100s of millions of blogs
Infoglut…

5. Which stories make the
greatest impression on
the masses?
Which stories not
only inform us, but
move us deeply?

6. First Person Stories
“Our ordinary stories
become extraordinary
journeys.”
– Joe Lambert, Center for
Digital Storytelling

7. Malala
Yousafzai

8. War in Vietnam:
Kim Phuc

9. War in Iraq: Youssif
In 2007 when he was four
years-old, Youssif was set on
fire by unknown men outside
his home in Baghdad.

10. “The culture of the mind
must be subservient to
the culture of the
heart.”
– Gandhi

11. 2. Inspiration: First person stories
about health
Laura Rothenberg
My So-Called Lungs
www.radiodiaries.org/my-so-called-
lungs/

12. www.radiodiaries.org/thembis-aids-diary/

13. 3. What is a Digital Story?
2 - 3 minute script
Voice recording
Photos, images, artwork
Animation
Music
Center for Digital
Storytelling

14. Digital Stories are
typically…
1. Self Relevatory
The author shares new insights giving the
story a sense of immediacy and discovery.
2. Personal or First Person Voice
Personal reflections on a subject. Convey
emotion about subjects that have deep
meaning for the author.

15. 3. About lived experience told in a series of scenes
told by the author.
4. More photos than moving images.
5. Soundtrack to add meaning and impact.
6. Intention
More about self-expression than publication and
audience.
From: “Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives,
Creating Community.” By Joe Lambert

16. 4. Types of Digital
Stories
Character stories
Most stories inspired by relationships, love, and
exploring meaning in relationships that are
important to us.
Memorial stories
An important part of the grieving process.
Honouring and remembering people.

17. Adventure and Accomplishment Stories
About a trip (often best planned in advance)
About graduating, getting a job…
About a place in my life
A home, room, city or town
The story about what I do
My job…How it has impacted my life…

18. Recovery stories
Sharing the experience of overcoming a great challenge
in life.
Document descent, crisis, realization.
Love stories
Dream stories
Coming of age stories
From: “Digital Storytelling:
Capturing Lives, Creating
Community.” By Joe Lambert

19. 5. Seven Steps of Digital
Storytelling (CDS)
1. Owning your
insight
3. Owning your
emotions
2. Finding the
moment
4. Seeing your
story
5. Hearing your
story
6. Assembling
your story
7. Sharing your
story

20. 6. StoryTurns
“The audience gets used to hearing the
same [mass media] formulations. It
doesn’t really feel it. It doesn’t feel
sympathy nor responsibility…As a
journalist, I try to reclaim this reality from
the clichés, from the banalities, from the
stereotypical formulations.”
-- David Grossman

21. Supporting people to tell their
own stories

22. Reporting on the survivors of conflict and
disaster

23. Training with CDS and the University of
Colorado Denver
Facilitation grounded in mindfulness or
Insight meditation practice and yoga

24. Hallmarks of our workshops are
safety and well being of all
participants, compassion and care.

25. 7. Tools for Content Production
WeVideo.com
iMovie
Tablets
Computers

26. 8. How to find participants and
encourage potential participation
StoryTurns partners with
community organizations
(health, education, youth,
seniors, human services, and
more)
Everyone has a story.

27. 9. Ethics and Care
Primary concern: To ensure a place of safety for
storytellers
Meet with potential participants in the weeks before
a workshop. Talk about the workshop process.
Gives participants a chance to decide if they want to
participate.

28. During the workshop
Keep groups small (6 – 10 people)
Always have trained counselors and support staff
from partner organizations present
Take rejuvenating breaks…Eat meals together to
ease anxiety…
Keep in touch with participants after workshop

29. Recent StoryTurns
stories
News Junkie
By Aaron Goodman
https://vimeo.com/89538056
Youth at Risk
http://vimeo.com/storyturns
Providence Health Care
Stories will posted online in the coming days
www.facebook.com/storyturnsworkshop

30. 10. What impacts can Digital
Storytelling have?
“With the creation of a narrative, a fragmented
present tense becomes a coherent past tense.
To narrate one’s life is to have agency. To know
and feel this agency is important for everyone,
especially for those who have been victimized.”
– Michelle Citron, 1999

31. 11. Is it therapeutic?
“People realize that they can begin to transform their
suffering by sharing it – first by articulating it to
themselves, then to the small group, and perhaps, to
the world. Then the sense of isolation and hopelessness
begins to diminish, and a new hope is found in the
community and communion of storytellers.”
– Pip Hardy / Tony Sumner (Patient Voices, UK)

32. Dianne Tobin and
Larry Love
Providence Health Care patients
Digital storytelling participants

33. 12. Digital storytelling about
health
“To humanize health care
through highlighting the
human side of experience of
health, illness, health care and
the lack of it.” – Pip Hardy /
Tony Sumner (Patient Voices,
UK)

34. “Stories of health, life, death and disease can
offer us deep insights into not only the storyteller,
but the storyteller’s family and cultural traditions
– if only we are prepared to listen.”
-- Pip Hardy / Tony Sumner (Patient
Voices, UK)

35. Purposes and Applications
To inspire systemic changes (e.g. HIV screening,
free vaccines, etc.)
To raise awareness
To evaluate research and programs
From: “Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives,
Creating Community.” By Joe Lambert

36. Whose stories?
Patients
Families
Caregivers
Hard-to-reach communities (ethnic minorities,
refugees, economic migrants, disabled people,
people impoverished by disease or economically-
deprived)
From: “Digital Storytelling: Capturing
Lives, Creating Community.” By Joe
Lambert

37. How can Digital Stories
be used?
Educational and quality improvement programs
Conferences
E-learning
Community-based participatory research (CBPR)
Tell an organization’s story
Persuasion or a call to action
Reflective practice (mindfulness, deeper reflection,
concentration)
From: “Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives,
Creating Community.” By Joe Lambert

38. Some inspiring Digital Stories
about health
Alzheimer’s Australia
www.youtube.com/playlist?
list=PLAwhBH-4GO5hUHSEmxnLbHl-2YigOWuaV
Out of the Blue
(CDS)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Xma_2P7gd0
Go Around
(Patient Voices / CDS)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVuF6lHZ-BE

39. Contact:
storyturns@gmail.co
m
facebook.com/
storyturnsworkshop
778-960-4792

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