Studying at York
The Future of Story: Storytelling in the Digital Age - TFT00063H
Module summary
In this module, students will acquire an advanced understanding of stories created with digital media as crafted across diverse contexts, from advertising to entertainment to data visualization. You will examine various case studies of creative digital stories to understand whether and how their telling is effective, and how stories and meaning are shaped using Web platforms (podcasts, YouTube, Vine, Instagram), social media, text adventure games, interactive dramas, computational fictions, mobile media, virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, transmedia and other forms of digital media. The narrative impulse is a universal one: in this module, you will learn how that impulse plays out in today’s shifting technological landscape.
Module will run
| Occurrence | Teaching period |
|---|---|
| A | Autumn Term 2022-23 |
Module aims
- To provide an understanding of the practices through which stories are told in the 21st century media landscape
- To explore how digital technologies shape the experience, identity and notion of stories
- To critically think through the ideologies and other cultural ramifications of digital storytelling
- To broaden students’ understanding of the relationships between technology (including pre-digital precursors) and the changing cultural values, political contexts, and theoretical concepts of story
Module learning outcomes
- Understand the ways in which we tell stories with digital media
- Demonstrate an understanding of how digital media and technologies have changed the narratives that shape contemporary society
- Demonstrate an understanding of how digital stories create impact from form to production to distribution
- Demonstrate the ability to critique and analyse different narrative works created in computational environments
- Demonstrate the ability to critically think about digital storytelling and how it affects contemporary digital culture and practices
- Demonstrate the ability to analyse theoretical texts and apply theory to other media texts
- Demonstrate the ability to read and write critically about digital storytelling practices and applications
Module content
Week 2: Introduction: redefining the relationship between story and audience (open source authoring tool communities, personal game authorship (Twine); redefining the relationship between collaborators; developments towards generative storytelling; re-shaping screen-based practices of storytelling; new processes and creative workflows
Week 3: Transmedia storytelling: interactive serial online and TV content, cross-media projects
Week 4: Storytelling on/with social media: stories on and using social media (Instagram/Snapchat/Twitter/Facebook)
Week 5: Ambient/spatial/AR storytelling: “walking simulators”; projects that use locative-aware narratives; mobile storytelling
Week 6: Immersive/360/VR storytelling
Week 7: Live/performative storytelling
Week 8: Non-fiction storytelling
Week 9: AI/algorithmic storytelling: projects that use artificial intelligence, machine learning, algorithmic writing practices
Indicative assessment
| Task | % of module mark |
|---|---|
| Essay/coursework | 100 |
Special assessment rules
None
Indicative reassessment
| Task | % of module mark |
|---|---|
| Essay/coursework | 100 |
Module feedback
Students will receive written feedback on coursework assessments using a proforma identifying key marking criteria and marks awarded for each section of the assessment. This will be available within 20 working days of submission, except in exceptional circumstances which will be communicated to the students.
Indicative reading
Alexander, Bryan, The New Digital Storytelling: Creating Narratives with New Media, Praeger, 2017.
Dunford, Mark and Tricia Jenkins, Digital Storytelling: Form and Content, Palgrave, 2017.
Gitner, Seth, Multimedia Storytelling for Digital Communicators in a Multiplatform World, Routledge, 2015.
Klanten, Robert, Visual Storytelling: Inspiring a New Visual Language, Die Gestalten Verlag, 2011.
Knaflic, Cole Nussbaumer, Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals, Wiley, 2015.
McCandless David, Information is Beautiful, Collins, 2012.
Miller, Carolyn Handler, Digital Storytelling: A creator’s guide to interactive entertainment, Focal Press, 2008.
Penn, W.S., Storytelling in the Digital Age, Palgrave, 2013.
Quesenbery, Whitney, and Kevin Brooks, Storytelling for User Experience: Crafting Stories for Better Design, Rosenfeld Media, 2010.