Books by Son Vivienne
Palgrave Communication for Social Change Series, 2016
Edited Books by Son Vivienne
With pervasive use of mobile devices and social media, there is a constant tension between the pr... more With pervasive use of mobile devices and social media, there is a constant tension between the promise of new forms of social engagement and the threat of misuse and misappropriation, or the risk of harm and harassment.Negotiating Digital Citizenship explores the diversity of experiences that define digital citizenship. These range from democratic movements that advocate social change via social media platforms to the realities of online abuse, racial or sexual intolerance, harassment and stalking. Young people, educators, social service providers and government authorities have become increasingly enlisted in a new push to define and perform ‘good’ digital citizenship, yet there is little consensus on what this term really means and sparse analysis of the vested interests that drive its definition. The chapters probe the idea of digital citizenship, map its use among policy makers, educators, and activists, and identify avenues for putting the concept to use in improving the digital environments and digitally enabled tenets of contemporary social life. The components of digital citizenship are dissected through questions of control over our online environments, the varieties of contest and activism and possibilities of digital culture and creativity.
Book Chapters by Son Vivienne
Digital Intimate Publics, 2019
In this chapter I explore a case study in the formation of a community of trans* and gender-diver... more In this chapter I explore a case study in the formation of a community of trans* and gender-diverse (TGD) people in regional and urban centres in South Australia, both on and offline, during a social media storytelling initiative called Stories Beyond Gender. I consider some similarities and differences between self-making in traditional Digital Storytelling workshops, and the more dispersed and potentially incoherent fragments of selves that we shared across a variety of digital platforms during this project. I explore tensions evident in curating complex, fluid or multiple identities, both for oneself and as a community, in digitally mediated form. I argue that negotiations over coherence (as judged by others) and congruence (as intuited by self) can be affirming, building the resilience required to undertake advocacy.
Youth, Sexuality and Sexual Citizenship, 2019
Over the past 20 to 30 years, the Internet has come to serve as a key channel for communicating a... more Over the past 20 to 30 years, the Internet has come to serve as a key channel for communicating and connecting, but also engaging in civic participation. For lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer or questioning (LGBTIQ+) people, who continue to experience disproportionate health risks and high rates of discrimination (Leonard et al. 2012), the significance of the Internet as a social resource is further magnified (Gray 2009, Hanckel and Morris 2014). While digital social spaces have evolved, many of the motivations for using these platforms
remain the same. Different platforms offer different opportunities to connect with queer peers and others, for discussing, documenting and exploring sexuality away from heteronormative spaces (Hillier et al. 2001, 2010, O’Neill 2014). From text-based ‘virtual’ worlds and discussion boards through to sites and apps such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Tumblr, YouTube, Reddit, Tinder, Grindr and Her, the digital social media landscape is now more complex than ever. What new challenges and opportunities does this evolution present? A better understanding of digital engagement (and disengagement) is useful not only for researchers and platform designers but also for a broad range of social service providers, educators and policymakers who are routinely tasked with both the
regulation and the support of young LGBTIQ+ people.
Going Postal: more than 'Yes' or 'No'
Going Postal: More than 'Yes' or 'No'
Going Postal: More than 'Yes' or 'No', 2018
Citation: Vivienne, S., Robards, B. & Lincoln, S. (2016) ‘“Holding a space” for gender-diverse an... more Citation: Vivienne, S., Robards, B. & Lincoln, S. (2016) ‘“Holding a space” for gender-diverse and queer research participants’ in A McCosker, S Vivienne, and A Johns (eds) Negotiating Digital Citizenship: Control, Context and Culture, Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 191-212.
Choosing how to represent one's self in digital social spaces might seem banal and everyday for some, but for others this process can be fraught and highly political. Consider a YouTube video detailing the physical changes associated with gender transition, or a selfie with a same-sex lover shared in a country where homosexuality is illegal. Sites like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and apps like Snapchat, Tinder, and Grindr, are centred in many ways around identity politics: who the user is, who they are not, what they stand for, who they are connected to, who they want to fuck, what their families look like and how their everyday lives play out. While it could be argued that all representations and performances of self are inherently political, the stakes for young gender-diverse and queer people who undertake 'performative self-making', are amplified. Despite progress in Western nations around gay rights, the visibility of (some) trans people, and a general move towards 'tolerance', people who do not conform to a dominant set of cisgender, heteronormative ideals continue to be at risk of stigmatisation and exclusion. As a result this cohort of people with diverse genders and sexualities (DGS 1) are still overrepresented in statistics on suicide, depression, homelessness, and drug-abuse (Hillier et al., 2010). On top of these very real potential harms there is a less tangible risk that these complex and somewhat fluid identities be judged inconsistent, deceitful or 'incoherent'. The process of performative self
Queering Paradigms II: Interrogating Agendas, Jan 1, 2011
Journal Articles by Son Vivienne
Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 2012
This article explores how queer digital storytellers understand and mobilize concepts of privacy ... more This article explores how queer digital storytellers understand and mobilize concepts of privacy and publicness as they engage in everyday activism through creating and sharing personal stories designed to contribute to cultural and political debates. Through the pre-production, production, and distribution phases of digital storytelling workshops and participation in a related online community, these storytellers actively negotiate the tensions and continuums among visibility and hiddenness; secrecy and pride; finite and fluid renditions of self; and individual and collective constructions of identity. We argue that the social change they aspire to is at least partially achieved through networked identity work on and offline with both intimate and imagined publics.
This article explores how queer digital storytellers understand and mobilize concepts of privacy and publicness as they engage in everyday activism through creating and sharing personal stories designed to contribute to cultural and political debates. Through the pre-production, production, and distribution phases of digital storytelling workshops and participation in a related online community, these storytellers actively negotiate the tensions and continuities among visibility and hiddenness; secrecy and pride; finite and fluid renditions of self; and individual and collective constructions of identity. We argue that the social change they aspire to is at least partially achieved through networked identity work on and offline with both intimate and imagined publics.
Media International Australia, 2018
This article draws on a methodologically interesting case study called Stories Beyond Gender, in ... more This article draws on a methodologically interesting case study called Stories Beyond Gender, in which a small group of trans* people collaborates in social media storytelling. Building on the possibilities manifest in other more explicitly personal-as-political genres like digital storytelling, I explore the potential of this facilitated workshop practice to establish meaningful connections across difference, forging affinities that may continue to flourish online. Furthermore, I offer some specific examples of the ways in which my own networked story-sharing online, in a zine and in an exhibition affirmed emergent complexity. I address the theme of this Special Issue by examining the ways in which social media, despite paradoxical fragmentation, can be used creatively to mobilise interest in public aspects of gender expression. However, sharing stories, especially those linked to stigmatised identities, whether online or off, is not without its complications. In the face of highly valued privacy, a lack of familiarity with ever-changing privacy settings or the affordances of specific platforms can pose an obstacle to online self-representation that stands in the way of visible civic engagement. While acknowledging that the trans-phobic consequences of online misadventures continue to be dire, I address the self-protective skills and sophisticated ways in which gender-diverse people curate emergent and past selves across intersecting social networks both on and offline. I argue that, at the intersections of post-digital and post-gender ways of being, we can observe emergent acceptance of multiple selves that are capable of being inconsistent without being incoherent. These representations exist in stark opposition to pop psychology's premise of a singular authentic ?inner truth?.
While selfies of beautiful cisgender women are declaimed by mainstream media as narcissistic and ... more While selfies of beautiful cisgender women are declaimed by mainstream media as narcissistic and facile, some body-positive feminists and queer theorists argue that selfies can be empowering. They claim self representation by traditionally stigmatized people can challenge normative presentations of beauty and gender. This article problematizes “empowerment” as a definitive and/or productive frame and argues instead for observation and analysis of “privilege” in situated practice. In this article I combine analysis of a collection of online cultural artifacts (including nonbinary selfies on Tumblr) and interviews with a small group
of trans* social media storytellers to explore theoretical tensions between
gender fluidity and identity fragmentation across multiple social media
sites and practices. Gender-diverse digital self-representation encompasses
both “consistent” androgyny, nonbinary, agender, and so on, and
“emergent” presentations-in-flux. I assert that the ongoing iteration of self across social media—implied by self (re)presentation—can have simultaneous and contradictory political significance. I conclude that networked interpersonal complications frame understandings of empowerment, as perhaps they always have done.
Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 2012
This article explores how queer digital storytellers understand and mobilize
concepts of privacy ... more This article explores how queer digital storytellers understand and mobilize
concepts of privacy and publicness as they engage in everyday activism
through creating and sharing personal stories designed to contribute to cultural
and political debates. Through the pre-production, production, and distribution
phases of digital storytelling workshops and participation in a related
online community, these storytellers actively negotiate the tensions and continuua
among visibility and hiddenness; secrecy and pride; finite and fluid
renditions of self; and individual and collective constructions of identity. We
argue that the social change they aspire to is at least partially achieved through
‘‘networked identity work’’ on and offline with both intimate and imagined
publics.
Arts and Humanities as Higher Education, 2016
This essay describes three intertwined modes of being – teaching, advocating and nurturing – in w... more This essay describes three intertwined modes of being – teaching, advocating and nurturing – in which I demonstrate vulnerability as a strategy for thinking through the complexities of digital self-representation. In the first mode I am a digital media researcher and lecturer, in the second I am a community arts worker and media-maker; and in the third I am a parent engaging with a teenager around access to and uses of digital platforms. As digitally mediated contemporary life entangles previously separate spheres like work/leisure, family/friends and politics/passion, personal values regarding privacy and publicness also shift. For marginalised people with stigmatised identities, social acceptance is conditional and bigotry hides around every corner. Beyond stigma, even powerful white men can experience vulnerability through personality (for example, mental illness) or association (for example, an illicit love affair, or a vulnerable loved one). I argue that, for most people, the demands of everyday digital praxis reinforce a need for self-study and storytelling to empower and learn across a range of contexts. What is appropriate to share with whom? What benefits outweigh the risks of over-sharing? Many of us gain the basic skills of digital engagement by unintentionally breaching boundaries that reveal vulnerability. For my part, I experience vulnerability by virtue of personality (anxiety), association (parenting kids who need to defend their ‘abnormal’ family structure) and identity (I am queer in orientation to gender and sexuality). The agonistic relationship between vulnerability and authoritative is core in each of these domains and something I wrangle on an ongoing basis. I am not, however, unique. Vulnerability is not wholly different now that it is mediated and amplified by digital means. After all, ‘learning from one’s mistakes’ was an aphorism a long time before digital cultures invented #fail. Nevertheless, I argue that feeling self-conscious, off-balance, or unsettled, whether in front of a class or online, is an opportunity to critically engage with our digitally augmented selves, and build upon what bell hooks calls ‘progressive pedagogy’ to expand participatory teaching/learning practices for lives that are increasingly and inevitably permeated by technology.
Cultural Science, Jan 6, 2014
Networked identity work is the conscious negotiation or co-creation of identity, enacted by speak... more Networked identity work is the conscious negotiation or co-creation of identity, enacted by speaking and listening across differences among multiple publics, including those real and imagined, familiar and unknown, on and offline, present and future. It is a concept I explore extensively in research with queer Digital Storytellers who share their personal stories in public places to catalyse social change (Vivienne 2013). In this article I consider distinctions
between ‘story’ and ‘identity’; ‘networking’ and ‘networked identity work’ and argue that the two concepts may be usefully employed in development of co-creative community projects. Finally I consider how variable definitions of co-creativity influence project development.
While Digital Storytelling has been lauded as an exemplary model of participatory cultural citize... more While Digital Storytelling has been lauded as an exemplary model of participatory cultural citizenship (particularly in initiatives for and with marginalised people), many mediating
influences make ‘authentic’ self-representation far from straightforward. In this article, I consider some of these mediating influences, from both theoretical and practical perspectives, and underline their regulatory and constitutive nature. While some of these mediating influences are timeworn and pre-date digital technology, others are perpetuated and amplified, as is the case in networked personal storytelling disseminated online. I draw on some well-established strategies derived from anthropology and narrative practices to propose a
new purpose for old tools. These tools support the nuanced and sensitive facilitation of both face-to-face and online Digital Storytelling workshops as well as the curation of web spaces
in which they eventually circulate. I argue that making complex mediating influences visible to participants affords redress of the inherent social and technical privileges of institutions,
facilitators and platforms. Finally, I consider the implications of these strategies for voice, marginalised identity, cultural citizenship and social change.
‘Positive Stories’ is a Digital Storytelling initiative that took place in Adelaide in 2010-2011[... more ‘Positive Stories’ is a Digital Storytelling initiative that took place in Adelaide in 2010-2011[1]. This article describes participants’ experiences of creative self-representation and the thorny complications of mediating voice, particularly in situations where privacy and publicity are significant issues.
Digital stories are short (3-5 minute) autobiographical documentaries, usually driven by a first-person narrative. They typically combine elements such as voice-overs, still photographs, artworks, and other personal documents with sound effects and music to communicate stories about people’s lived experiences.
Digital Storytelling is typically a workshop-based practice, where participants learn to tell their own stories while strengthening their communication skills and digital media production techniques. As a movement, digital storytelling emerged from the empowerment through community arts discourses popular on the west coast of the US in the late eighties [2]. The Center for Digital Storytelling (CDS) formalised the process and it was later championed in the UK as a tool for bringing the voices of ‘ordinary’ people to mainstream audiences via the BBC [3].
As digital technologies for production (digital cameras, computers and editing software) and distribution (DVD and online) have become more accessible many advocates have noted the democratic potential of the medium. For individuals whose stories are marginalised, mis-represented or ignored by mainstream media, Digital Storytelling offers an opportunity for self-representation. However, for many storytellers, regardless of these potentials, the realities of stigma and discrimination (in both on and offline communities) can have a significant influence upon the kind of content people are willing to share and how and with whom they share it. Additionally the manner in which workshops are framed and facilitated by organisations can also influence the content that participants produce, and what they are willing to say.
Digital Stories are short autobiographical documentaries, often illustrated with personal photogr... more Digital Stories are short autobiographical documentaries, often illustrated with personal photographs and narrated in the first person, and typically produced in group workshops. As a media form they offer ‘ordinary people’ the opportunity to represent themselves to audiences of their choosing; and this amplification of hitherto unheard voices has significant repercussions for their social participation. Many of the storytellers involved in the ‘Rainbow Family Tree’ case study that is the subject of this paper can be characterised as ‘everyday’ activists for their common desire to use their personal stories to increase social acceptance of marginalised identity categories. However, in conflict with their willingness to share their personal stories, many fear the risks and ramifications of distributing them in public spaces (especially online) to audiences both intimate and unknown. Additionally, while technologies for production and distribution of rich media products have become more accessible and user-friendly, many obstacles remain. For many people there are difficulties with technological access and aptitude, personal agency, cultural capital, and social isolation, not to mention availability of the time and energy requisite to Digital Storytelling. Additionally, workshop context, facilitation and distribution processes all influence the content of stories. This paper explores the many factors that make ‘authentic’ self-representation far from straight forward. I use qualitative data drawn from interviews, Digital Story texts and ethnographic observation of GLBTQIS participants in a Digital Storytelling initiative that combined face-to-face and online modes of participation. I consider mediating influences in practice and theory and draw on strategies put forth in cultural anthropology and narrative therapy to propose some practical tools for nuanced and sensitive facilitation of Digital Storytelling workshops and webspaces. Finally, I consider the implications of these facilitation strategies for voice, identity and social participation.
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Books by Son Vivienne
Edited Books by Son Vivienne
Book Chapters by Son Vivienne
remain the same. Different platforms offer different opportunities to connect with queer peers and others, for discussing, documenting and exploring sexuality away from heteronormative spaces (Hillier et al. 2001, 2010, O’Neill 2014). From text-based ‘virtual’ worlds and discussion boards through to sites and apps such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Tumblr, YouTube, Reddit, Tinder, Grindr and Her, the digital social media landscape is now more complex than ever. What new challenges and opportunities does this evolution present? A better understanding of digital engagement (and disengagement) is useful not only for researchers and platform designers but also for a broad range of social service providers, educators and policymakers who are routinely tasked with both the
regulation and the support of young LGBTIQ+ people.
Choosing how to represent one's self in digital social spaces might seem banal and everyday for some, but for others this process can be fraught and highly political. Consider a YouTube video detailing the physical changes associated with gender transition, or a selfie with a same-sex lover shared in a country where homosexuality is illegal. Sites like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and apps like Snapchat, Tinder, and Grindr, are centred in many ways around identity politics: who the user is, who they are not, what they stand for, who they are connected to, who they want to fuck, what their families look like and how their everyday lives play out. While it could be argued that all representations and performances of self are inherently political, the stakes for young gender-diverse and queer people who undertake 'performative self-making', are amplified. Despite progress in Western nations around gay rights, the visibility of (some) trans people, and a general move towards 'tolerance', people who do not conform to a dominant set of cisgender, heteronormative ideals continue to be at risk of stigmatisation and exclusion. As a result this cohort of people with diverse genders and sexualities (DGS 1) are still overrepresented in statistics on suicide, depression, homelessness, and drug-abuse (Hillier et al., 2010). On top of these very real potential harms there is a less tangible risk that these complex and somewhat fluid identities be judged inconsistent, deceitful or 'incoherent'. The process of performative self
Journal Articles by Son Vivienne
This article explores how queer digital storytellers understand and mobilize concepts of privacy and publicness as they engage in everyday activism through creating and sharing personal stories designed to contribute to cultural and political debates. Through the pre-production, production, and distribution phases of digital storytelling workshops and participation in a related online community, these storytellers actively negotiate the tensions and continuities among visibility and hiddenness; secrecy and pride; finite and fluid renditions of self; and individual and collective constructions of identity. We argue that the social change they aspire to is at least partially achieved through networked identity work on and offline with both intimate and imagined publics.
of trans* social media storytellers to explore theoretical tensions between
gender fluidity and identity fragmentation across multiple social media
sites and practices. Gender-diverse digital self-representation encompasses
both “consistent” androgyny, nonbinary, agender, and so on, and
“emergent” presentations-in-flux. I assert that the ongoing iteration of self across social media—implied by self (re)presentation—can have simultaneous and contradictory political significance. I conclude that networked interpersonal complications frame understandings of empowerment, as perhaps they always have done.
concepts of privacy and publicness as they engage in everyday activism
through creating and sharing personal stories designed to contribute to cultural
and political debates. Through the pre-production, production, and distribution
phases of digital storytelling workshops and participation in a related
online community, these storytellers actively negotiate the tensions and continuua
among visibility and hiddenness; secrecy and pride; finite and fluid
renditions of self; and individual and collective constructions of identity. We
argue that the social change they aspire to is at least partially achieved through
‘‘networked identity work’’ on and offline with both intimate and imagined
publics.
between ‘story’ and ‘identity’; ‘networking’ and ‘networked identity work’ and argue that the two concepts may be usefully employed in development of co-creative community projects. Finally I consider how variable definitions of co-creativity influence project development.
influences make ‘authentic’ self-representation far from straightforward. In this article, I consider some of these mediating influences, from both theoretical and practical perspectives, and underline their regulatory and constitutive nature. While some of these mediating influences are timeworn and pre-date digital technology, others are perpetuated and amplified, as is the case in networked personal storytelling disseminated online. I draw on some well-established strategies derived from anthropology and narrative practices to propose a
new purpose for old tools. These tools support the nuanced and sensitive facilitation of both face-to-face and online Digital Storytelling workshops as well as the curation of web spaces
in which they eventually circulate. I argue that making complex mediating influences visible to participants affords redress of the inherent social and technical privileges of institutions,
facilitators and platforms. Finally, I consider the implications of these strategies for voice, marginalised identity, cultural citizenship and social change.
Digital stories are short (3-5 minute) autobiographical documentaries, usually driven by a first-person narrative. They typically combine elements such as voice-overs, still photographs, artworks, and other personal documents with sound effects and music to communicate stories about people’s lived experiences.
Digital Storytelling is typically a workshop-based practice, where participants learn to tell their own stories while strengthening their communication skills and digital media production techniques. As a movement, digital storytelling emerged from the empowerment through community arts discourses popular on the west coast of the US in the late eighties [2]. The Center for Digital Storytelling (CDS) formalised the process and it was later championed in the UK as a tool for bringing the voices of ‘ordinary’ people to mainstream audiences via the BBC [3].
As digital technologies for production (digital cameras, computers and editing software) and distribution (DVD and online) have become more accessible many advocates have noted the democratic potential of the medium. For individuals whose stories are marginalised, mis-represented or ignored by mainstream media, Digital Storytelling offers an opportunity for self-representation. However, for many storytellers, regardless of these potentials, the realities of stigma and discrimination (in both on and offline communities) can have a significant influence upon the kind of content people are willing to share and how and with whom they share it. Additionally the manner in which workshops are framed and facilitated by organisations can also influence the content that participants produce, and what they are willing to say.
remain the same. Different platforms offer different opportunities to connect with queer peers and others, for discussing, documenting and exploring sexuality away from heteronormative spaces (Hillier et al. 2001, 2010, O’Neill 2014). From text-based ‘virtual’ worlds and discussion boards through to sites and apps such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Tumblr, YouTube, Reddit, Tinder, Grindr and Her, the digital social media landscape is now more complex than ever. What new challenges and opportunities does this evolution present? A better understanding of digital engagement (and disengagement) is useful not only for researchers and platform designers but also for a broad range of social service providers, educators and policymakers who are routinely tasked with both the
regulation and the support of young LGBTIQ+ people.
Choosing how to represent one's self in digital social spaces might seem banal and everyday for some, but for others this process can be fraught and highly political. Consider a YouTube video detailing the physical changes associated with gender transition, or a selfie with a same-sex lover shared in a country where homosexuality is illegal. Sites like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and apps like Snapchat, Tinder, and Grindr, are centred in many ways around identity politics: who the user is, who they are not, what they stand for, who they are connected to, who they want to fuck, what their families look like and how their everyday lives play out. While it could be argued that all representations and performances of self are inherently political, the stakes for young gender-diverse and queer people who undertake 'performative self-making', are amplified. Despite progress in Western nations around gay rights, the visibility of (some) trans people, and a general move towards 'tolerance', people who do not conform to a dominant set of cisgender, heteronormative ideals continue to be at risk of stigmatisation and exclusion. As a result this cohort of people with diverse genders and sexualities (DGS 1) are still overrepresented in statistics on suicide, depression, homelessness, and drug-abuse (Hillier et al., 2010). On top of these very real potential harms there is a less tangible risk that these complex and somewhat fluid identities be judged inconsistent, deceitful or 'incoherent'. The process of performative self
This article explores how queer digital storytellers understand and mobilize concepts of privacy and publicness as they engage in everyday activism through creating and sharing personal stories designed to contribute to cultural and political debates. Through the pre-production, production, and distribution phases of digital storytelling workshops and participation in a related online community, these storytellers actively negotiate the tensions and continuities among visibility and hiddenness; secrecy and pride; finite and fluid renditions of self; and individual and collective constructions of identity. We argue that the social change they aspire to is at least partially achieved through networked identity work on and offline with both intimate and imagined publics.
of trans* social media storytellers to explore theoretical tensions between
gender fluidity and identity fragmentation across multiple social media
sites and practices. Gender-diverse digital self-representation encompasses
both “consistent” androgyny, nonbinary, agender, and so on, and
“emergent” presentations-in-flux. I assert that the ongoing iteration of self across social media—implied by self (re)presentation—can have simultaneous and contradictory political significance. I conclude that networked interpersonal complications frame understandings of empowerment, as perhaps they always have done.
concepts of privacy and publicness as they engage in everyday activism
through creating and sharing personal stories designed to contribute to cultural
and political debates. Through the pre-production, production, and distribution
phases of digital storytelling workshops and participation in a related
online community, these storytellers actively negotiate the tensions and continuua
among visibility and hiddenness; secrecy and pride; finite and fluid
renditions of self; and individual and collective constructions of identity. We
argue that the social change they aspire to is at least partially achieved through
‘‘networked identity work’’ on and offline with both intimate and imagined
publics.
between ‘story’ and ‘identity’; ‘networking’ and ‘networked identity work’ and argue that the two concepts may be usefully employed in development of co-creative community projects. Finally I consider how variable definitions of co-creativity influence project development.
influences make ‘authentic’ self-representation far from straightforward. In this article, I consider some of these mediating influences, from both theoretical and practical perspectives, and underline their regulatory and constitutive nature. While some of these mediating influences are timeworn and pre-date digital technology, others are perpetuated and amplified, as is the case in networked personal storytelling disseminated online. I draw on some well-established strategies derived from anthropology and narrative practices to propose a
new purpose for old tools. These tools support the nuanced and sensitive facilitation of both face-to-face and online Digital Storytelling workshops as well as the curation of web spaces
in which they eventually circulate. I argue that making complex mediating influences visible to participants affords redress of the inherent social and technical privileges of institutions,
facilitators and platforms. Finally, I consider the implications of these strategies for voice, marginalised identity, cultural citizenship and social change.
Digital stories are short (3-5 minute) autobiographical documentaries, usually driven by a first-person narrative. They typically combine elements such as voice-overs, still photographs, artworks, and other personal documents with sound effects and music to communicate stories about people’s lived experiences.
Digital Storytelling is typically a workshop-based practice, where participants learn to tell their own stories while strengthening their communication skills and digital media production techniques. As a movement, digital storytelling emerged from the empowerment through community arts discourses popular on the west coast of the US in the late eighties [2]. The Center for Digital Storytelling (CDS) formalised the process and it was later championed in the UK as a tool for bringing the voices of ‘ordinary’ people to mainstream audiences via the BBC [3].
As digital technologies for production (digital cameras, computers and editing software) and distribution (DVD and online) have become more accessible many advocates have noted the democratic potential of the medium. For individuals whose stories are marginalised, mis-represented or ignored by mainstream media, Digital Storytelling offers an opportunity for self-representation. However, for many storytellers, regardless of these potentials, the realities of stigma and discrimination (in both on and offline communities) can have a significant influence upon the kind of content people are willing to share and how and with whom they share it. Additionally the manner in which workshops are framed and facilitated by organisations can also influence the content that participants produce, and what they are willing to say.