What is the “digital” in Digital Storytelling?
It is definitely not just the fact that the storytelling is taking place on the Internet. After reading Bryan Alexander‘s “Web 2.0 Storytelling” chapter from his book The New Digital Storytelling, I came to the conclusion that digital storytelling is similar to “analog” epistolary novels. Epistolary novels are novels that are written by compiling several different types of writing. For example, letters, illustrations diary entries, and narratives can all tell the same story through different mediums and from characters’ perspectives. Digital storytelling does the same, tells a story online (hence why it is “digital,” it is not in a tangible form) through using different formats, such as a blogging, social media, images, videos, wikis, etc. I found it fascinating how theses digital storytellers use all of the different formats to really formulate their character’s personalities, but also using them to tell the story. Traditional storytelling relies on adjective to describes characters, but digital storytelling can describe characters through Facebook likes, retweets, and SoundCloud playlists.
All of this being said, based on Alexander’s discussion of digital storytelling, I do not think the Tumblr bot site Scenes from The Wire and Facebook’s TheWire constitute digital storytelling. Neither of them are actually trying to tell a story. The Tumblr bot site appears to be more like a fan page where fans can go, find snippets of the show they enjoyed and reblog them to share with their followers. It is also a great way to spread the show to reach new watchers even though it is over (but people could still buy the DVDs). The Facebook group is also a fan page. On it you can see merchandise for the show and see updates about what other shows the actors are starring on now. There is no story, it is just marketing. They only way it could be seen as trying to tell a story is to tell the story of the show’s success. Digital storytelling requires more than just making a page online. It requires a plot and development and the integration of several different online mediums.
