PlaceStories offers another case of digital storytelling, aimed at communities. The collaborative site aggregates digital content from Appalachian Mountain contributors, currently organized into three projects.
The communities are in Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky, with Virginia coming up:
The Mountain Reporter Network is using PlaceStories as part of efforts to develop an alternative, community-based media network that shares the stories of local citizens who are living with the true costs of coal and fighting for community survival. By sharing our experiences through PlaceStories we hope to expose the human and environmental devastation caused by the coal industry, influence policy decisions on the state and federal level, and build and strengthen the base of community activists in the Appalachian Mountains and beyond who are working for a sustainable future.
Another twist on digital storytelling comes from this new tool:
PlaceStories digital stories look and play like streaming web videos but they are not. The stories are created ‘on the fly’ in our custom Flash-based story viewer from the various digital media elements (photos, audio, text).
The project is a collaboration between individual contributors (“reporters”), and an Australian media company. Feral describes their work thusly:
Stories are valuable, often untapped community assets, and the building blocks of culture, identity and knowledge. We think it is important for communities to record their histories, experiences, achievements and aspirations, and if they choose to also share that knowledge in the public domain.
(thanks to Chad Berry!)
In: Communications, Tools · Tagged with: community, digital storytelling, multimedia narrative