Vox populi: enabling community-based narratives through collaboration and content creation

The traditional models of content delivery and creation as well as the roles of content producer and content consumer are being challenged in an environment of increasing user generated content. While the amount of user generated content is growing, there is an imbalance with respect to its quality and variety. In this paper, we discuss our research into two real collaborative documentary productions. We present two collaborative models of digital narrative content creation that demonstrate the way in which users have more control over their content and have a more immersive experience with the content. Curation of crowdsourced assets after a major natural disaster is explored in the production of "lenses + landscapes". We discuss crowdsourcing as a means to utilize existing media assets to deliver a narrative experience that consists of many small parts, but whose overall impact as a whole is greater than the sum. Co-located collaborative content creation is examined in the production of "places + perspectives". The implementation of large, remotely located touchscreens in collaborative sessions is illustrated and analyzed. By presenting the findings and details of our two experiments on collaborative storytelling, our goal is to demonstrate different methods for creating and curating collaborative content in and over remote locations to allow for a unique and enhanced user experience for content creators, collaborators and viewers.