Digital Storytelling (DST), broadly defined, is a kind of narrative approach that utilizes digital media production, including images, texts, sounds, and other elements. The term DST sometimes refers to a specific genre, for example, a video lasting a few minutes (Lambert, 2018). It is also used as a general umbrella term (Chan & Yau, 2019; Chan & Sage, 2019) covering different sorts of digital production activities which may be referred to by different terms, such as photovoice or youth media production. DST has been increasingly popular in education, human services, and even commercial sectors such as tourism. some common characteristics about digital storytelling can be generalized (Chan & Yau, 2019): i) It refers to the use of digitized images, texts, sounds and other interactive elements; ii) It usually involves service users, who are not technical experts, to share their stories with others; iii) It usually refers a wide range of genre, such as time-based short media clips, interactive texts and photo essays; iv) It involves user-friendly media production and editing tools, in forms of hardware (e.g., mobile phones) and software (e.g., free photo editing apps); v) It is distributed via diverse platforms, including websites, social media (e.g., YouTube), and offline screening; vi) It adopts both group and individual formats; vii) It can serve different purposes, having different program designs, and; viii) It may involve facilitators using specific work models.
Chan, C. & Sage, M. (2019). A narrative review of digital storytelling for social work practice. Journal of Social Work Practice, 1–15.
This article aims to provide a narrative review and derive a conceptualisation that is in line with social work’s psychotherapeutic and systems orientation. The review has derived a two-layer conceptualisation. In a broad sense, DST can be seen as an umbrella term covering different sorts of storytelling activities that use digital communication media. Practitioners and researchers can adopt a set of parameters for describing and comparing different practice designs. More specifically, DST can be seen as a kind of narrative practice utilising digital communication media. This definition offers a conceptual base for DST, which helps further theorisation and research in social work practice. 引文
Chan, C. (2019). Digital Story Retelling – Evaluation of a Story-reading Workshop Promoting Open-mindedness in the Community. Journal of Evidence-Based Social Work, 16(6), 652–668.
This study examined a story-retelling workshop model called StoryAd, which utilizes productions from DST activities to facilitate face-to-face contact. The workshop itself is also a lite version of DST activity. A pilot study was conducted in Hong Kong in 2019. Participants enrolled online, met offline, and their advertisement ideas might go online and contribute back to the stories. The workshop model was evaluated using a one-group pretest-posttest design. The participants were 45 Hong Kong Chinese, aged 18-60. Participants’ critical thinking disposition, self-esteem, perspective-taking, and curiosity toward new information increased, while their need for cognitive-closure decreased. This study has proved the feasibility and acceptability of the workshop model. It also opens the discussion about extending DST
pedagogy to engage and influence story-readers. 引文
Chan, C. (2019). Using digital storytelling to facilitate critical thinking disposition in youth civic engagement: A randomized control trial. Children and Youth Services Review, 107, 104522.
This study specifically designed a DST project based on a dialogic orientation and examined to what extent it could promote young participants’ critical and reflective mindsets. Method: By using civic identity as a heuristic production theme, a Randomized Control Trial (RCT) was conducted in Hong Kong in 2019. Participants were youths in Hong Kong, aged 16–24. They were randomized into a intervention group and control group. Participants shared photos on social media, chatted online and offline with facilitators, and finally produced their digital photo stories. Participants in the intervention group increased their self-esteem and critical thinking disposition. Their ethnocentric views also declined. Participants in the control group became more closed-minded, but participants in the intervention group remained at a stable level. This study provides initial evidence showing that DST might be used to develop youth participants’ CT disposition in civic engagement activities. 引文
Chan, C. & Holosko, M. (2019). Utilizing youth media practice to influence change: A pretest-posttest study. Research on Social Work Practice (e-Pub ahead of Print), 1–12.
This study developed and field-tested an social media –based YMP. Using “My National/Ethnic Identity” as a heuristic production theme, a pilot study was conducted in Hong Kong in 2018. This study demonstrates that YMP has potential to be a change-making strategy for future social work practice, and proper use of ICT can create space and opportunities for such reflective conversations. 引文
De Vecchi, N. et al. (2016). How digital storytelling is used in mental health: A scoping review. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 25(3), 183–193.
This paper reviews 15 articles selected from the literature in order to map how digital storytelling has been used in mental health and identify gaps in the literature regarding the use of digital storytelling in mental health services. The articles were categorized across four broad areas: educational interventions, learning skills, learning about other people's lived experience, and learning about personal lived experience. It was found that while digital storytelling has potential as a participatory process to promote mutual understanding of and empathy towards lived experiences in mental health, there is a dearth of research in this area. 引文
Gubrium, A. (2009). Digital storytelling: An emergent method for health promotion research and practice. Health Promotion Practice, 10(2), 186–191.
Gubrium (2009) is one of the earliest publications which explicitly adopts the term “digital storytelling” and introduces its use in health and social services. In Gubrium’s account, digital stories are short visual narratives that synthesize different media modalities (e.g., images, music) to create compelling accounts of experience, such practice incorporates both group and individual components, and participants usually need to go through guided workshops. 引文
Johnston-Goodstar, K. et al. (2014). Exploring critical youth media practice: Connections and contributions for social work. Social Work, 59(4), 339–346.
Johnston-Goodstar et al. (2014) conducted a content analysis of media production programs from 49 youth media groups in the USA. They termed this set of programs as “youth media practice”, seeing it as a field of practice that young people use media production as a vehicle for youth development, youth leadership, and organizational/community changes. This version of media practice has its roots in media literacy education in the 1990s and 2000s, in which practical production has been gradually seen as a desirable means to promote critical thinking and self-expression. These YMP programs can be classified into four major non-mutually exclusive categories: i) Empowerment, ii) Collective action, iii) Learning social theories, and iv) Promoting career and educational pathways. Nonetheless, the article does not provide an appraisal of the effectiveness of those programs 引文
Chan, C. & Yau, C. (2019). Digital storytelling for social work interventions. Oxford Bibliographies in Social Work. New York: Oxford University Press.
Digital storytelling is a storytelling method that is interwoven with digitized images, texts, sounds and other interactive elements, it can be used for social work intervention purposes. This article provides an overview of the field, and introduces high quality references in global contexts. 引文
Lambert, J. & Hessler, H. B. (2018). Digital storytelling: Capturing lives, creating community. London: Taylor and Francis.
This is guidebook published by the StoryCenter, which uses a "Seven Steps" approach, from conceiving a story, to seeing, assembling, and sharing it. 引文
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