Storytelling and Participation

5th June 2010, 13h – 18h

MEDEA, Kranen, Östra Varvsgatan 11 A, Malmö University

“Storytelling” has become yet another buzz-word, not only in marketing and corporate branding, but increasingly in development cooperation. It is typically deployed in the context of participatory communication approaches, providing means for people to tell their life stories, often with the employment of digital media (i.e. ‘digital storytelling’). Storytelling can of course also be part of a top-down dissemination approach, as social marketing, or a combination of communication strategies, as in edutainment, i.e. conveying messages in fictional stories, through theatre, comics, radio, TV series, etc.

Storytelling can in fact imply almost everything, and one may ask what the point is in using a term so general that it encompasses practically all human culture and communication.

Storytelling is evidently a matter of sharing experiences and construing collective memories and narratives – around a brand, or an identity, or a defined development goal – but it is just as important to learn to analyze and deconstruct these same narratives – the fictional fabric that constitutes society.

The seminar will assess Storytelling and Participation in relation to cultural and social change from both a researcher and a practitioner perspective, in collaborative media, interaction design and development cooperation.

Click here to register for the seminar.

PROGRAM

13.00                   Welcome

13.15 – 14.00    Jo Tacchi, Queensland University of Technology:

Participatory content creation: the issues of voice and the challenges of listening

14.15 – 15.00    Kristoffer Gansing, Malmö University, K3:

Transversal Media Practices

15.15 – 16.00    Jörn Messeter, Malmö University, K3:

Place-specific computing and participatory design

16.15 – 16.45     Helena Thorfinn, Sida:

Storytelling as part of Policy formulation within Health and Education in Bangladesh

17.00 – 17.30  Zeenath Hasan, Malmö University, K3:

Untold Stories, Emerging Formats: Creative storytelling from India

17.30 – 18.00  Summary Discussion

18.30               Drinks and Dinner buffet

Download the program (pdf file)