Inquiry Into Digital Content #1a Faces of the Narrative

 

TEDTalk: Clay Shirky: How social media can make history

According to Clay Shirky we are currently experiencing the "largest increase in expressive capability in human history" (TEDtalk, June, 2009).  We can receive instantaneous news and spread such news worldwide.  We are all able to be producers as well as consumers of ideas in the digital media landscape which, as Shirky states, encourages us to create our own social media communication rules, albeit somewhat informally.  Hence it is interesting that we can create digital stories using still and moving images; recorded and text-ed poetry, rhyme and prose; and sound effects and music to construct our meanings, hopeful that others will understand the intent of the communication; but this is not guaranteed.  Through such mediated attempts can we effectively convey the relationships, emotions, and feelings evoked by the storied events?  Using such media platforms as YouTube, are we really trying to recapture an earlier oral culture from a long-ago time, particularly as it pertains to a Western social and cultural history? 

For those who are discomforted by the freedom and seeming organic nature of such practices, perhaps we have become less trusting with the idea of story coming from within us and around us; less convinced of our own storytelling abilities and doubtful regarding the value of sharing lived experiences and thoughts about the world around us.  Maybe we have been conditioned by the top-down nature of our past experiences: used to the division between experts (who supposedly have something of worth to impart) and the rest of us (who receive the wisdom of others, as it relates to various contexts).  I like Shirky's statement above, as it re-establishes and relocates the power of the word or narrative within us all.  We each have the right to express ideas, opinions, interpretations, reflections and the like, in our attempts to story the historical moments: whether they are shared moments in the larger world history, or the individual and personal ones of our lives and interactions with others.  As participants in a socio-cultural movement,  it seems that we are gaining confidence and audacity in sharing that which we value and assume others will too. 

In An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube, by Michael Wesch   we see some of this reclaiming of story power in action: people making their own mark in the storied digital landscape.  There is evidence of participants ensuring the human-ness, once more, of what could be actualized as a very distant and disconnecting media experience.  Although, it is interesting that several of Wesch's students do appear to miss the immediate visual of a person, rather than an inanimate object, to share conversational ideas with: a receiver of the communication that is obvious and able to respond, say, with facial expressions, murmurings, and encouragement.  Finding ways to bridge such communication gaps is challenging: several of my colleagues addressed this issue by positing a changing social/community landscape that presents an alternate communication context that we are slowly adapting to, and accepting of.   


Interestingly, the growing use and manipulation of common elements such as music/sound, facial expression/body language, intimacy of voice/body language and the choice and placement of visual supports speak to the increasing need for skills in the Fine and Communication Arts.  These literacies embrace the common elements that speak to us "out there" in the digital landscape.  The very video that Michael Wesch and his students produced is a testament to the power and mastery of using stills, action, music, textual effects, and more to support the calm voice of explanation and proffered viewpoint for us, the audience, to consider.


Rotman and Preece describe YouTube as allowing "users to calibrate their participation and interaction levels--alternating between viewing the site's content passively and actively communicating with other users" (The 'WeTube' in YouTube: creating an online community through video sharing, in Int. J. Web Based Communities, Vol. 6, no. 3, 2010, p. 318). Their qualitative grounded theory research study,

seeks to understand whether YouTube users employed the social tools of the site to create and maintain a lively online community, or do they act independently of each other, posting videos with little regard to possible future interaction with their peers. (2010, p. 318)

They conclude that their selected group of YouTube users almost unanimously feel that it is a valid community and is a platform for communication and interaction rather than a broadcasting application: However, there was agreement that many individuals and groups, both commercial and not, did utilize YouTube and similar digital video sharing platforms for that exact purpose (p. 330). They found that "the thread which runs through all the video posts is the feeling of companionship, the ability to create meaningful relationships and practices, and even a sense of emotional attachment to 'their' site" (p. 330).


Mark Wesch and Rotman/Preece used qualitative approaches to their research and both use a form of narrative to present and represent their research and results. Wesch and his students embed their research into active participation in the digital culture that is under investigation and represent their study by documenting the story of the experiences: a situated activity.  Rotman and Preece explore the digital community using and sharing the stories of the participants from their particular vantage points: their narratives. For example, one fascinating interpretation of community in YouTube was storied as:

 I like to call this a spiderweb, because everyone interacts with each other, and everyone is a sender and a receiver. In this entire community there are smaller communities, smaller different topics and interests that they share with each other. So this is me, right here, and I interact with all these different groups...I participate in a community. (User-22, p. 324)

Both studies appear to hold to the description of narrative as stated by Barrett and Stauffer:

It is viewed variously as "story," as a "mode of knowing" and constructing meaning, and, more recently, as a method of inquiry." At times it is all of these simultaneously. Perhaps the most enduring description and understanding of narrative is as "story," an account to self and others of people, places, and events and the relationships that hold between these elements. (2009, p. 7)

This would align with Bruner's idea that we humans are naturally drawn to story: we use the narrative arts to help us make meaning of the world and our place in it. It is a comfortable and effective communicative and interpretive mode of being (2009, pp. 8-9). Richard Kearney, (2002), says that historical and fictional narratives relate to each other, which produces a practical wisdom that can respect the singularity of situations and the universality of values (p. 143). This would seem to support the shift toward the use of narrative in inquiry and the idea that we should be cognizant of why and how particular parts of such narratives are combined in any particular way (Barrett and Stauffer, 2009). It suggests a coming together of two ways of knowing: the logico-scientific and the contemplative search for meaning.


References:

Wesch, M. (2008). An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/user/mwesch

Barrett, M. S., & Stauffer, S. L. (2009). Narrative inquiry: From story to method. Narrative inquiry in music education (pp. 7-17). Springer Science and Business Media.
http://www.springerlink.com.ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca/content/uu15578688737084/

Shirky, C. (2009). How social media can make history. Video on TED.com
http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cellphones_twitter_facebook_can_make_history.html

Kearney, R. (2002). On Stories. Thinking in Action Series. New York, NY: Routledge


Rotman, D. & Preece, J.(2010). The "WeTube" in YouTube: creating an online community through media sharing. Intl. Journal of Web-Based Communities 6(3) 313-333 
http://www.danarotman.com/publications