2023 - Full Presentation Schedule
Digital Humanities Panel: Life Stories through Shorthand
Abstract
Digital storytelling has for years had a place within mass communication and media courses. It’s been used to produce news stories, promotional materials, and to capture personal experiences.
Capturing personal life experiences has been the focus of the final project in JOUR U350: Social and Emerging Media for several semesters. Students have documented the stories of relatives, coworkers, and friends through recorded interviews and then crafted a multimedia digital story using audio, video, maps, still images and text.
Up until this past semester, Microsoft Sway was the platform was used. Due to limitations within Sway, we shifted to Shorthand in the fall. Doing so allowed students to create stories that were more in-line with what’s seen in immersive stories through news outlets like the New York Times.
Although these individual stories have been valuable, a more intentional digital humanities approach holds promise for the future. Rather than documenting the stories of friends and relatives, the project could have a more specific shared goal of exploring certain themes, populations, and historical events. In addition, a database of these stories could be created to curate the content and provide access to the public in the future. There will certainly be challenges in doing so, but there is also great potential.
Digital Humanities Panel: Life Stories through Shorthand
CASB 101 - Digital Humanities
Digital storytelling has for years had a place within mass communication and media courses. It’s been used to produce news stories, promotional materials, and to capture personal experiences.
Capturing personal life experiences has been the focus of the final project in JOUR U350: Social and Emerging Media for several semesters. Students have documented the stories of relatives, coworkers, and friends through recorded interviews and then crafted a multimedia digital story using audio, video, maps, still images and text.
Up until this past semester, Microsoft Sway was the platform was used. Due to limitations within Sway, we shifted to Shorthand in the fall. Doing so allowed students to create stories that were more in-line with what’s seen in immersive stories through news outlets like the New York Times.
Although these individual stories have been valuable, a more intentional digital humanities approach holds promise for the future. Rather than documenting the stories of friends and relatives, the project could have a more specific shared goal of exploring certain themes, populations, and historical events. In addition, a database of these stories could be created to curate the content and provide access to the public in the future. There will certainly be challenges in doing so, but there is also great potential.