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2016 | Buch

Digital Identity and Everyday Activism

Sharing Private Stories with Networked Publics

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This book reinvigorates the space between scholarly texts on self-representation, voice and agency and practical field-guides to community media and digital storytelling. It offers reflection on the ethical praxis of co-creative media, and an indispensable suite of digitally savvy representation strategies, pertinent to modern people everywhere.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter
1. Introduction
Abstract
Access to and capacity for public self-representation have become markers of civic engagement and social wellbeing in Western democratic societies. Digital tools and platforms have extended opportunity for self-representation to many marginalised groups. Nevertheless, inequities persist. Barriers to social participation and adequate self-expression are similar to, but also different from, those experienced prior to widespread digitally mediated communication.
Sonja Vivienne
2. The ‘Social’ in Storytelling
Abstract
This chapter is divided into three main sections that position digital storytelling within a historical and social context. Firstly I discuss what constitutes a ‘personal story’ and then move on to consider how this rhetorical form has functioned in a cultural context in relation to social change. I argue that digital storytelling inhabits a particular space that sits on the brink of further metamorphosis should it adapt to some of the idiosyncrasies of online realms. I do not ascribe agency to digital storytelling itself, rather to the people and institutions that employ it as a tool. In the second section I describe the emergence of digital storytelling and its uses for personal empowerment, archiving social history, community development, education and social advocacy. I follow this overview with discussion of the cultural significance and critical problems that frequently emerge in scholarly literature on digital storytelling, in particular ordinary people and broadcast access, listening and development, expertise and sustainability and the ways in which context shapes production (coaxing a supposedly authentic voice) and consumption (framing the way that stories are interpreted by audiences). Finally, in the third section, I consider some examples of personal online storytelling in multiple forms including personal blogs (‘Same Plus’), collective themed blogs (‘Born This Way’) and affirma-tional vlogs (‘It Gets Better’) before moving on to discussion of specific possibilities for digital storytelling in online spaces.
Sonja Vivienne
3. Identity: Nominalisation, Authenticity and Incoherence
Abstract
In this chapter I start where it all begins — with understandings of identity at a micro level. I consider digital stories as sites of active social and political negotiation that enact personal identity. Drawing on textual analysis of stories, interviews with storytellers and observations of identity negotiations in flux, I consider identity from the point of view of individuals actively engaged in asking ‘who am I?’ and ‘how will I represent myself?’. While discussing these generalised processes I consider pertinent theories of identity put forth in popular psychology, post-structuralist philosophy, postmodernism, narrative theory and queer theory.
Sonja Vivienne
4. Case Studies in Voice
Abstract
This chapter considers digital storytelling from a meso perspective — or middle distance. First, I describe the considerations of facilitators, organisations and web curators as they conceive digital storytelling initiatives and distribution strategies — in particular the facilitation of voice in my three case studies. The fact that digital storytelling is principally organised around non-expert media-makers signals the explicit involvement of experts as mentors throughout creative production and distribution processes. Mediating influences are inevitable and they occur at numerous intersections: the translation of organisational objectives into practical outcomes; the enfolding of individual identities into collectives (e.g. ‘GLBTQIS’ storytellers); and the compilation of personal anecdotes into edited media documents and web archives. What influences do these mediators of voice have upon self-expression?
Sonja Vivienne
5. The Private in Networked Publics
Abstract
As storytellers decide what images, sounds and words they use to tell their stories they negotiate new and old meanings with friends and family members, the first stage of networked identity work. As they decide what line to tread between publicness (socially acceptable revelations) and the privacy that protects them from stigmatisation, they consider safety and risk for themselves, as well as their intimate publics.
Sonja Vivienne
6. Provocations: Digital Storytelling ≠ Social Change
Abstract
Everyday activists frequently refer to their storytelling as a ‘drop in the ocean’ or a ‘ripple in a pond’. While I have heard these expressions used almost interchangeably, brief consideration reveals that they represent almost opposite ends of a spectrum of hope. ‘A drop in the ocean’ is typically used as an analogy for the slight significance of one contribution compared with what is needed to affect change. On the other hand a ‘ripple in a pond’ refers to the continuing and expanding results of an action. If a drop of water represents a story or storyteller then the energy and motion relayed to the proximal drops might be called networked identity work. However, this analogy is not as appropriate as it first appears. Networked identity work relays energy simultaneously across time and space, between people who are both real and imagined, past, present and future. It is hard to think of a natural or visual metaphor that illustrates the kind of social change that is catalysed. While the first five forms I describe in the introduction are to some degree tangible, erosive change takes longer to observe. It is nevertheless observable and perhaps, over time, the impact of networked identity work is also measurable. This chapter reviews, in brief, both the obstacles and opportunities for digital storytelling as a catalyst for social change.
Sonja Vivienne
7. What Lessons to Bear Forth?
Abstract
This book has offered unique insight into specific textual approaches and modes of sharing used by marginalised (and in some cases stigmatised) people. I have highlighted the labour involved in negotiating and managing privacy and publicness across networked online and face-to-face environments. While Intimate Citizenship 3.0 is fraught with risk, the rewards include greater cultural and civic engagement and erosive social change. These new understandings can be usefully mapped onto other contexts in which digital tools and platforms are being used to facilitate engagement and empowerment, for example among young people who strive to overcome bullying, or older people who seek a way out of social isolation. In the following I present four summative points as they emerge during my representative chapters on voice, identity and networked publics.
Sonja Vivienne
Backmatter
Metadaten
Titel
Digital Identity and Everyday Activism
verfasst von
Sonja Vivienne
Copyright-Jahr
2016
Verlag
Palgrave Macmillan UK
Electronic ISBN
978-1-137-50074-8
Print ISBN
978-1-349-55856-8
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137500748