Digital storytelling: New opportunities for humanities scholarship and pedagogy

TLDR

Combining storytelling, digital tools, and humanities seems improbable, yet digital storytelling’s interactivity, nonlinearity, flexibility, user participation, and co‑creation affordances could disrupt traditional humanities practice and offer cross‑disciplinary, iterative opportunities for scholarship and pedagogy. The essay defines digital storytelling as a blend of storytelling techniques, digital affordances, and humanities focus, and describes its various forms. It outlines frameworks and outcomes for using digital storytelling, highlighting its potential to enhance critical thinking, communication, digital literacy, and civic engagement.

Abstract

At first thought, combining storytelling, digital tools, and humanities seems improbable. For example, digital storytelling is characterized by interactivity, nonlinearity, flexible outcomes, user participation, even co-creation. Such affordances may be disruptive to traditional humanities scholars accustomed to working alone, with physical objects, and following established theoretical guidelines. However, they may be quite appealing to those seeking new opportunities for cross-disciplinary, iterative approaches to practice-based humanities scholarship and pedagogy. This essay defines digital storytelling as a combination of storytelling techniques, digital affordances, and humanities foci, describes several forms of digital storytelling, outlines frameworks and outcomes associated with their use, and promotes digital storytelling as providing new opportunities for humanities scholarship and teaching, especially with regard to critical thinking, communication, digital literacy, and civic engagement.