Participação efetiva com recurso a narrativas negociadas

Este artigo analisa o projeto “Red Branch Heroes”, um protótipo interativo e transmédia, lançado na Irlanda do Norte. Este projeto de investigação ação analisa as técnicas de escrita que podem ser utilizadas para promover uma participação eficaz. O artigo sugere uma forma de participação que reconhece os equilíbrios de poder que existem entre o autor e as audiências em narrativas digitais. Defende uma série de técnicas que promovem uma maior partilha desse poder, para que essas posições de poder sejam desafiadas. Mas também defende o papel do autor como o de um condutor ou orquestrador, papel este que é definido por um processo de negociação. Tal processo resulta numa “narrativa negociada”

Let me tell you a story: teaching transmedia in HE

Bolton Storyworld, a transmedia platform, is a practice based research project at the University of Bolton run by students and staff and supported by a Manchester based transmedia production company, Bellyfeel. Together we have been interested in discovering the most effective ways to write, produce, and to teach the necessary skills for transmedia, an emerging form of production. We have run 3 trials of a locally based interactive project as prototypes. These have helped us make some interesting discoveries about how to write effectively for the form and how to teach it as part of a programme of media production at HE level. To date we have analysed our work in relation to new media theorists and practices Zaluczkowska & Robinson (2014). This article reports a work in progress that aims to place the outcomes much more firmly in an educational context

Bolton Storyworld – towards a Screenplay/Prototype for a Transmedia Production

The final contribution is Bolton Storyworld by Anna Zaluczkowska, an innovative transmedia experience that was developed in collaboration with staff and students at University of Bolton. The research objective was to explore the teaching of transmedia storytelling by creating three prototypes across multiple platforms, including Facebook, a geo-located website, email, text messages, an online game and live student event. What is interesting about this research is the way in which it outlines the collaborative process, drawing on Jenkins and Millard to explore contemporary screen writing practice that recognises the storyworld, as opposed to plot and character, as increasingly central in the digital age. The submission includes links to an article, a podcast and the storyworld ‘bible’ which was used to anchor the storyworld across its various platforms

RED BRANCH HEROES – WRITING WITH MY AUDIENCES

The research presented here analyses the practices that a writer/designer needs to adopt to meet the challenges of active audience participation in new media platforms. The research does this through the construction of a working prototype that tests the writing practices used and plays out the resulting design with live audiences. The thesis underlying the research argues that visual storytelling is as important as the written word, that viewers expect greater involvement in the construction of stories and that improvisation is as important as scripted work. The study concludes that the techniques found in process drama are useful to writing in this medium but that these need to be supplemented with community-building gamification elements to build immersion. Writers working in these environments therefore need to work imaginatively with their viewers and co-creators to build stories. I suggest that the most effective way to do this is to construct a ‘negotiated narrative’, a narrative that is negotiated between makers, authors, and audiences. The prototype has been primarily designed to take place within contemporary Northern Ireland. The reasons for this setting are many and relate as much to my experience of growing up in Northern Ireland as they do to the lack of a serialised drama that engages the interest, hopes and aspirations of all individuals and communities who live there. Therefore, the research also asks if interactive forms such as transmedia offer any new storytelling potentials to the people of Northern Ireland. What advantages do stories that have been developed with the active participation of participants offer to post-conflict societies - societies that have experienced violent division and conflict. Evidence is presented in this study to suggest that the negotiated narratives formulated in this prototype offer further creative community-building possibilities, in neutral spaces that can facilitate discourses about the future

A Systematic Review of Digital Storytelling as Psychotherapy for People with Mental Health Needs

Storytelling is used in many cultures as an important way to communicate historical messages of lived experiences intergenerationally. Past studies indicated that storytelling is an effective tool in education and mental health, but evidence of the therapeutic use of digital storytelling is scarce. This review therefore explored available literature evidence of the use of digital storytelling media as mental health therapy to identify knowledge gaps for a further Secret Story Network role-playing game intervention study. Based on some key search terms and a set of inclusion and exclusion criteria, 14 full-text articles were systematically selected through searches of mainly EBSCOhost that connected seven databases, including AMED, BNI, CINAHL, EMBASE, EMCARE, Medline, and APA PsycInfo. The studies reviewed suggested a tactical focus on adolescents and adults older than 18 years and more females than men. Ten digital storytelling media interventions were found in 11 sources, but only two studies on older adults with dementia had a therapeutic intervention framework. Qualitative and mixed-methods reported in nine sources were shown to be the common study methodologies. The evidence extracted also revealed six criteria for classifying storytelling types, and the purposes, effects, benefits, and uses of digital storytelling indicated a general assumption that digital storytelling interventions have therapeutic, educational, social, and psychological effects. However, evidence suggests that while digital storytelling may significantly reduce symptoms of depression (p < .05), its effects on other mental health symptoms are inconclusive. Thus, further research into the psychotherapeutic effect of digital storytelling is necessary. Five implications for future research are discussed

INDCOR white paper on the Design of Complexity IDNs

This white paper was written by the members of the Work Group focusing on design practices of the COST Action 18230 - Interactive Narrative Design for Complexity Representation (INDCOR, WG1). It presents an overview of Interactive Digital Narratives (IDNs) design for complexity representations through IDN workflows and methodologies, IDN authoring tools and applications. It provides definitions of the central elements of the IDN alongside its best practices, designs and methods. Finally, it describes complexity as a feature of IDN, with related examples. In summary, this white paper serves as an orienting map for the field of IDN design, understanding where we are in the contemporary panorama while charting the grounds of their promising futures

How We Role: The collaborative role-playing poetics of the Secret Story Network

In 2018, a group of ten academics and industry professionals created ‘The Secret Story Network’. This practice-research initiative produced ten 60‐90-minute role-playing games conducted on the social media platform WhatsApp. In the process, we worked to identify and refine design strategies that incentivize engagement with the type of narrative collaboration that media scholars commonly call ‘collective storytelling’. Via the participatory action research methodology, this study evolved through cycles of prototyping, testing, feedback, reflection and modification. This article analyses our study in relation to the ‘Threefold Word Model’ for RPGs proposed by Kim. Based on the affordances of the WhatsApp interface, we suggest a modification of this conceptual frame, in line with scholars such as Edwards, Bøckman and Bowman that extends investigations into four theoretical lenses that we use to examine the stories in our study. These modes are (1) drama, (2) game, (3) simulation and (4) immersion. The observations made also suggest new avenues for ‘writing’ and creating interactive digital narratives