Storytelling Influenced by Technology

Storytelling has evolved overtime, from the cave drawings, drum beats and narratives of primary cultures to the sophisticated multimedia presentations of today. People may be drawn to storytelling because of the experience that is created by the teller through the “magical potency” of the words when spoken aloud, for as Ong (1982) describes: “sound cannot be sounding without the use of power” (p.32). Others may prefer a form of storytelling that allows them to become a part of the story where they can interact with how the story is being told and the actual outcome of the story. Regardless of the format, storytelling has always been about transferring meaning from one person to another and modern technology has provided new ways in which people can create and recreate this storytelling experience in a digital form.

There are now entire books on CD and short stories on podcasts that can be downloaded from the Internet “via iTunes or an RSS feed” (Wallen, 2009, p.12), which allows one to listen to a story whenever and wherever they would like. One website that features such short stories is the Missouri Review (www.missourireview.com) which hosts a competition annually for the most literally stories told in less than six-minutes. Another popular website for such stories is DimeStories (www.dimestories.org) which is “a reading series with various open mikes and showcases” (Warren, 2009, p.12). There is also narrative nonfiction that can be found at The Moth (www.themoth.org), featuring true stories of five-minutes or less that are told in front of a live audience. And finally, there is Yarn Audio Works (www.yarnaudioworks.com) which has an array of audio stories and documentaries. These are just some of the websites that provide a unique channel for orators to tell their stories and for listeners to retrieve stories they otherwise would not have had access to.

Beyond just being able to listen to stories electronically there are now multimedia children’s books that allow the reader to participate in the story beyond the written book. Scholastic launched the first series of such books in 2008 called, 39 Clues (www.the39clues.com), with “the sales pitch on the back of the book: Read the Books. Collect the Cards. Play the Game. Win the Prizes” (Deahl, 2009, p.18). This series offers an interactive website and a gaming element to the books that has attracted young readers and has kept them coming back for more. The sixth book of the ten book series is now available in stores and this series has become so popular that the film rights have already been purchased by Steven Spielberg (Deahl, 2009). Similarly, HarperCollins introduced The Amanda Project (www.amandaproject.com) this year with the first book, Invisible I, of a six book series. This series offers an interactive website that allows readers to develop a character, search for clues, create artwork and submit writings for future books. Then there are authors like Patrick Carman who are including their own multimedia concept with a book like the online video he created in conjunction with his book, Skeleton Creek, which allows the reader to interact with the story by finding clues and passwords online. These multimedia projects “are steering a bold new direction for children’s publishing (Deahl, 2009, p.18) and are influencing the way children read and participate in storytelling.

Similarly, many educators from elementary schools to colleges are now introducing digital stories into their classrooms as a tool for presenting information and as a creative outlet for their students.

Digital storytelling is a simple method of using widely available image editing software (iMovie, Premiere, MA Photo Story, PowerPoint) to blend together digitized still photographs and narrative to created short, evocative, and informative multimedia pieces (Fletcher and Cambre, 2009, p.110).

Digital storytelling allows students to participate in a hands-on-process that allows them to personalize what they are learning. The students are able to construct their own meaning and knowledge not only from the stories they tell, but also from what forms of media they use to tell them in. This type of multimedia learning goes beyond traditional storytelling by developing decision making and technological skills and encouraging students to work together across different curriculum areas (Simkins, Cole, Fern & Means, 2002).

Even though the forms of storytelling have changed over time, the purpose to communicate ideas from one person to another to create meaning has remained the same. “Stories are important, providing us with a voice in time and place about our heritage” (Joseph, 2006, p.13). As technology advances, storytelling will continue to become a hybrid of art and science in which the learning is mutual for the author and the audience.

References

Deahl, R. (2009). The New Storytelling. Publishers Weekly. 256(13). 18-20.

Fletcher, C. and Cambre, C. (2009). Digital Storytelling and Implicated Scholarship in the Classroom. Journal of Canadian Studies. 43(1). 109-130.

Joseph, L. (2006). Digital Storytelling. MultiMedia & Internet@Schools. 13(4). 13-16.

Ong, W.J. (1982). Orality and Literacy. London: Methuen.

Simkins, M., Cole, K., Tavalin, F., & Means, B. (2002). Increasing Student Learning Through
Multimedia Projects. Alexandria: ASCD.

Wallen, A. (2009). Audio Outlets Give the Storytelling Tradition a Modern Twist. Writer.
122(10). 12.

Gender Roles and the Internet: Women as Communicators and Men as Searchers

“As recent as 1997, boys and men made up three-quarters of Internet users,” (Chabrow, 2005), however today men and women access the Internet equally and Chabrow even claims that women are becoming the more dominate user in America. Yet, men and women continue to approach the Internet differently, meaning they have varying ways in which they use the Internet to meet their needs.

Prior to researching information for this blog, I decided to do my own Internet experiment by posting the question on Facebook, “do women and men approach the Internet differently?” The responses I received from my friends, both men and women, overwhelmingly indicated that men use the Internet mostly for searching, whereas women use it to communicate. For example, my sister-in-law, Shelley Berman stated, “without knowing the real statistics of it all, my guess is that women and men use it equally for knowledge...but I would bet that more women than men use it for entertainment and connecting with others socially.” This difference in the way men and women approach the Internet is primarily due to their innate differences in gender, which is “a socially constructed means of categorizing people, usually as masculine or feminine, and assigning particular ideals and characteristics to those categorizations” (Thurlow, Lengel, & Tomic, 2004, p.130).

The research provided by Kennedy, Wellman and Klement (2003), validates the claim that men and women use the Internet as an extension of their gender roles in the home. In a typical American family men are still seen as the primary breadwinner and therefore, their use of the Internet to search for information that may improve themselves or the family along with “more isolated recreational activities” (Kennedy et al., 2003, p.90) fits with this gender role. Similarly, even though women may work outside of the home, they are still the primary “childcare provider, kinkeeper and networker” (Kennedy et al., 2003, p.90) in the family who is responsible for maintaining relationships with relatives, friends and neighbors, therefore, most women use the Internet to communicate with others through email, social networking sites, blogs and chat rooms. Surprisingly, I have found these gender roles to be true in my own family, for my husband recently attended his twentieth high school reunion and even though I was not there and had never met his classmates before, he told them to look me up on Facebook as I would be keeping everyone up to date with my pregnancy and eventually the baby. My husband does not care to spend his time networking on the Internet, but he is more then happy to research the specifications of baby items such as cribs, strollers and car seats because he can compare the quality and price of each brand, which he thinks will help us make a better purchasing decision.

One specific example of how women and men approach the Internet differently with regards to gender roles is their participation in computer games for entertainment. Most men play computer games where they can perform an action in a “linear” format where you “complete a level and then you go to the next level and the next level and you win” (FindingDulcinea, 2009), as Ariel Aberg-Riger of Fourth Story Media explains in a panel discussion on how men and women use the Internet differently. This type of game re-enforces the breadwinner mentality of the male gender that it is necessary to climb the corporate ladder in order to succeed. Since “the majority of the computer games today contain exaggerated representations of gender – the spaces within the games are masculine,” (Thurlow et al., 2004, p.131), most women do not have an interest in playing these types of games. Through the female gender role as a communicator, women cannot relate to the concepts, characters or the end goal of these male-dominated games and prefer a different experience as explained further by Aberg-Riger:

“with girls it is much more nebulous, like they kind of want to be involved in the world, and they want to see the world respond to them, um, and their interested in the clues and their interested in the mystery and their interested in these things happening, um, but they more want just to live it and share it with their friends and I think that’s a big difference in entertainment at least” (FindingDulcinea, 2009).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NwHgr7tcEU

The women who do play computer games are more intrigued with character building games that involve a community such as Farmville on Facebook where they are able to interact with other players to work together for an end result.

Another example of how gender roles affect the use of the Internet is the perception that men are more likely to use it for sexual gratification than women. For example, in response to my question on Facebook, I did have one man, Scott Hancock, respond by writing “I don’t know. Do women like porn? I kid. I kid.” Even though he was making a joke, there was another man who continued with the joke in his own response as it seemed to be a known fact that this is what men search for on the Internet and women do not. It is true that men may be “more likely to report consumption of pornographic material than are women” (Bryant, 2009, p.345), but women do look for sexual material on the Internet. Just as their gender role suggests, women are more likely to “seek out chat rooms and erotic narratives, and are less likely to masturbate to online sexual materials” (Bryant, 2009, p.345), whereas men are more likely to search for an immediate response of arousal from visual images which can be used masturbatory aids. Even while displaying sexual behaviors on the Internet women are communicating through words and trying to make a connection with another person as opposed to searching for an immediate solution like a man.

Gender roles and their affect on the use of the Internet are real and should be studied further by scholars and businesses. The fact that I first chose to post a question on Facebook regarding this topic to gain insight on the topic from my friends fits within my gender role of a woman as a communicator, as opposed to a searcher. However, I am not the only woman who turns to Facebook or other social media sites first when seeking information, for there are “42 million women in the United States (roughly 53% of the 79 million adult women in the United States who use the Internet) that participate in social media at least weekly” (Campbell, 2009) as found in a 2009 survey by BlogHer and iVillage and Compass Partners. The survey also explains that while Facebook and MySpace receive the most use by women, more women go to blogs for information on business, politics, cars and technology. Therefore, it is important for all companies and non-profit organizations to understand the differences in how women and men approach the Internet based on their gender roles to ensure that they are going to attract the correct audience through their marketing campaigns and keep them as loyal consumers or supporters.

References

Berman, S. (2009, November 13). Facebook [Msg 5]. Message posted to

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/elise.berman?ref=profile

Campbell, A. (2009, May 10). 42 Million U.S. Women Use Social Media: Blogs Most

Influential. Small Business Trends. Retrieved November 9. 2009 from http://smallbiztrends.com/2009/05/42-million-women-use-social-media-blogs.html

Chabrow, B. (2005, April 7). More American Women Than Men Go Online. Information Week.

Retrieved November 6, 2009 from http://www.inforamtionweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=160502074

FindingDulcinea. (2009). Pt. 9 How Do Men and Women Use the Web Differently? - Internet

Week 2009 - Beyond Facebook. Retrieved November 8, 2009 from

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NwHgr7tcEU

Hancock, S. (2009, November 13). Facebook [Msg 2]. Message posted to

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/elise.berman?ref=profile

Kennedy, T., Wellman, B. and Klement, K. (2003). Gendering the Digital Divide. IT&SOCIETY,

1(5), 72-96.

Thurlow, C., Lengle, L. and Tomic, A. (2004). Computer Mediated Communication: Social

Interaction and the Internet. London: Sage.