Digital Story Critiques
The critiques that I wrote in this course represent my strongest analysis of examples of digital storytelling as a contemporary form of literacy practice. I chose one of the earliest critiques from the beginning of the course and a later one toward the end - as well as a couple in the middle - in order to demonstrate the evolution of my understanding of digital stories. Most of these examples were in keeping with my focal theme as well. Not all of these digital stories are conventional. You will notice that I eventually moved away from video and started exploring social media.
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It’s 1995!...but it's also 1963 is a very early critique, only the third one of the semester. I was still trying to understand what constitutes digital storytelling at that point. For example, how long does a story have to be in order to qualify? What design elements need to be included? This story was just under two minutes long - does that even count? The story of a famous musical sample used in two songs that were made 20 years a part is really just an anecdote. But the video editing make the story being told come alive for the viewer.
Teriyaki Joe: Neo-Harlem Detective represents a departure from the storytelling formats that I had chosen up to that point. I had previously been very focused on video stories, but I really wanted to find something related to my focal theme that wasn't a video or audio story. I was not aware of the phenomenon of twitterature until this course. I think I found a really great example of a Twitter novel, even though the work is unfinished. I found several more that are complete Twitter novels and I link to them in the blog post to show that it is possible to write an entire story soley using Twitter. The character limit of the platform is the most interesting creative aspect of this kind of storytelling. How well can you express yourself in just 140 characters?
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Detective Boogaloo: Hip Hop Cop was a really fun story critique to do. Again, I was prompted to search the web for examples of hip hop storytelling and this comic surfaced amidst that search. This critique happened during the twelfth week of the semester and I noticed that it felt like a turning point. This was probably the first digital story critique that I wrote where I felt confident in discussing specific design features and storytelling traits. I don't know exactly why this story in particular helped me to gain such confidence, but it might have to do with having examined very closely seven stories prior to this one. I was finally beginning to discern storytelling elements - such as story, audience and media application - across a range of formats and I felt comfortable discussing these things. It was an awesome feeling and I continued to notice a new facility in this regard toward the end of the semester. In addition, I had a wonderful interaction on social media with the author of this story, which I will discuss in the final section of my portfolio.
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Barbie Savior’s Instagram is much later critique from the end of the semester, and it was my first to navigate away from my focal theme. However, at the end of the critique I remembered an incident where a musical artist took on a similar narrative challenge as the one presented in this story. So there was an adjacent element of hip hop storytelling after all, which I linked to for readers who might be interested in exploring the question on their own, even though I declined to discuss it in my critique. I think Instagram stories are a lot of fun and I think I might attempt to do one myself. I feel very inspired by the idea of taking and posting one photo at a time, perhaps adding a narrative element - or not - and creating a chronological timeline/archive. The challenge of sustaining a narrative thread, either with words or solely with images, is really fascinating to me. This particular story was a satire and in my critique of it I did play around with that idea briefly by not indicating immediately that I was aware of the joke. This was an amusing critique to write.