Digital Storytelling

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I've been fortunate to have a great RA this semester. Recently she requested some sources on digital storytelling. The titles of the books appear related to the topic as I understand it, but the subjects are wide-ranging and not especially useful to the particular aspects of digital storytelling that interest me...

Technologies for Interactive Digital Storytelling and Entertainment, Gobel et al.
(conference proceedings)
This was the most promising of the bunch, with an article by Kibbat, Harald titled "Oral Tradition versus Digital Storytelling: On Educational Effects of Middle European Folk Tales and Their Value for Digital Storytelling," p. 292-296. But wait, that's a mighty tight page range for such an expansive title, and sure enough the piece is by a storyteller who offers his opinion that these digital tools might be good for retelling folk tales. No argument from me, but neither is there enough depth or substance here to warrant more than a cursory citation. Hey, at least he's making the connection to what has been traditionally known as "storytelling."

The next books don't really even do that....

Digital Storytelling by McClean,
subtitle: The Narrative Power of Visual Effects in Film. That's probably enough said... this is a book about movie making.

Storytelling Online by Shani Orgad,
but again, wait for the subtitle: Talking Breast Cancer on the Internet. It's about sharing stories, valuable and important stories, but it's not about storytelling as an art form.


Digital Storytelling: Creating an eStory by Howell
The lower-case "e" makes me a little nuts, but basically this is one of those rapidly-dated books on how to use software to do digital storytelling. It's the one of the four I'm hanging on to for the spring 409 (storytelling) courses, just in case it provides useful answers to questions that arise. It's also the kind of book that just begs this big question: why make a *book* out of this? Why not make a website??

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