Digital Storytelling, Annotated Bibliography
Compiled by Lisa Dush
Founders’ Voices
Lambert, Joe. Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives, Creating Community. Berkeley, CA: Digital
Diner Press, 2002.
Definitive history of digital storytelling written by the cofounder of the Center for
Digital Storytelling. Also contains much practical advice on the digital storytelling
process.
Meadows, Daniel. “Digital Storytelling: Research-Based Practice in New Media.” Visual
Communication 2.2 (2003): 189-93.
Short explanation of the workshop format used in the Capture Wales project, along
with discussion of the unique properties of the process.
Community Digital Storytelling
Burgess, Jean. “Hearing Ordinary Voices: Cultural Studies, Vernacular Creativity and Digital
Storytelling.” Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 20.2 (2006): 201-214.
Coins the term “vernacular creativity” to describe the unique skills at work in digital
storytelling. Also makes the point that digital stories can’t be properly judged within
the familiar cultural studies frames of aesthetics and ideology.
Klaebe, Helen and Marcus Forth. “Capturing Community Memory with Oral History and
New Media: The Sharing Stories Project.” In Proceedings 3rd International Conference
of the Community Informatics Research Network (CIRN), Prato, Italy. (2006). Retrieved
April 12, 2007 from http://eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00004751/
Describes and reflects on an Australian public history project that used digital
storytelling.
Tharp, Kevin W. and Liz Hills. “Digital Storytelling: Culture, Media and Community.” Using
Community Informatics to Transform Regions Eds. Stewart Marshall, Wal Taylor, and Xinghuo
Yu. Hershey, PA: Idea Group, 2004. 37-51.
Argues that digital storytelling is a promising approach to community-building and
empowerment, but that the digital divide is real and should temper our radical claims
for the power of digital storytelling.
Digital Storytelling with Youth & in the Classroom
Davis, Alan. “Co-Authoring Identity: Digital Storytelling in an Urban Middle School.”
THEN: Journal 1.1 (2005). Retrieved April 12, 2007 from
http://thenjournal.org/feature/61/
Describes the way that digital stories can be a “developmental tool” for young
people, helping them to fix and reflect on their identities.
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Hayes, Renee and Eugene Matusov. “From ‘Ownership’ to Dialogic Addressivity: Defining
Successful Digital Storytelling Projects.” THEN: Journal 1.1 (2005). Retrieved April 12,
2007 from http://thenjournal.org/feature/61/
Examines three digital storytelling projects and uses Bakhtinian theory to analyze the
success of each.
Hull, Glynda A. and Mark Evan Nelson. “Locating the Semiotic Power of
Multimodality.” Written Communication 22.2 (2005): 224-261.
A close reading of one digital story, in hopes of locating how the various modes
(image, music, text) work together to create a uniquely powerful text.
New Media & Education, Not Digital Storytelling-Specific
Anderson, D. (2003). Prosumer approaches to new media: Consumption and production in
continuum. Kairos (8)1. Retrieved March 11, 2004 from
http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/8.1/binder2.html?http://www.hu.mtu.edu/kairos/Cover
Web/anderson/index.html
Online video article that discusses the power of prosumer technologies in
classrooms.
Buckingham, David. Media Education: Literacy, Learning, and Contemporary Culture. Cambridge,
UK: Polity Press, 2003.
Wide-ranging look at why media education is necessary and how it might be taught.
Lessig, Lawrence. Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity. New York: Penguin, 2004.
The copy-left guru tells us why strict copyright rules are no good: a useful
introduction to copyright activism.
Kress, Gunter. Literacy in the New Media Age. London: Routledge, 2003.
Dense, but important book on the implications of the cultural shift from print to
screen as the dominant medium of communication.
Narrative Theory
Bruner, Jerome. Making Stories: Law, Literature, Life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2002.
Reflection on the mental and cultural value of storytelling. Bruner is a psychologist
famous for describing narrative as key to the way humans process the world. See also
his other notable books, Acts of Meaning and Actual Minds, Possible Worlds.
Kenyon, Gary and William Randall. Restorying Our Lives: Personal Growth Through
Autobiographical Reflection. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1997.
Examines how lives can be ‘restoried.’ First chapter is a helpful overview of
published research and theory on narrative.
Epston, David and Michael White. Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends. New York: W.W.
Norton, 1990.
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Explains the process of narrative therapy.
Ochs, Elinor & Lisa Capps. “Narrating the Self.” American Review of Anthopology, 25 (1006):
19-43.
Extensive review article on the theory of personal narrative. Cites over 240 sources,
most from linguistics and literary theory.
Inspiration: Digital Storytelling Process
Krause, Jim. The Photo Idea Index. Cincinnati, OH: How Books, 2005.
Inexpensive, thoughtful how-to guide, full of simple techniques for taking more
interesting photographs.
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. New York: Harper Collins, 1993.
Handsome book by a graphic artist, describing how words and image work together
to create meaning.
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