Links

The links below will take you to additional resources or interesting information that is related to each chapter. Some of these links can also be found in the published book but others are unique to this website. Please note that all of these links were tested at the time of constructing this website, but unfortunately some of the Web material might have gone offline since then.

Digital Storytelling is a notoriously fast-moving subject. The initial updates published on this website were brand new a few months ago, but since then there have been a host of new developments. The new developments and stories of interest are listed here using the same organizational structure as in the book, chapter by chapter. Areas with the richest developments include digital technology, of course, as well as mobile apps, transmedia, robotics, informational stories, and immersive environments. But almost every form of Digital Storytelling has experienced some new developments.

 

Chapter 1

  1. A website devoted to the ball game played in ancient MesoAmerica: http://www.ballgame.org/
  2. A Wikipedia entry about Joseph Campbell: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell
  3. The website of mythologist Pamela Jaye Smith: (www.mythworks.net)
  4. The website of Eastgate Systems, Inc., a prominent publisher of electronic literature: (www.eastgate.com)
  5. “We Tell Stories,” a website by Penguin, the publisher, showcasing digital tales and new ways to tell stories: http://www.wetellstories.co.uk/

Chapter 2

  1. A new book by Sarah Atkinson, Beyond the Screen, explores iCinema and many other emerging forms of new media, including transmedia storytelling, audience sourced stories, stories told on iPads, and experimental mobile films. Atkinson is Principal Lecturer in Film and Media at the University of Brighton, UK, and is a practitioner of iCinema herself. http://www.amazon.com/
  2. The best-known Machinima production, Red vs Blue: http://rvb.roosterteeth.com/archive/
  3. One especially amusing example of a machinima short is Male Restroom Etiquette, by Phil Rice. It's a spoof on 1950 style educational films, and thus a mockumentary. (Be advised that by watching it, you are potentially infecting your computer with a virus. I cannot be sure this is the case, but my computer was infected with a nasty virus shortly after I watched it). http://www.youtube.com/
  4. Links for hyperliterature, a catchall phrase that includes hypertext, digital poetry, nonlinear literature, electronic literature and cyberliterature:
    1. The Hyperliterature Exchange (http://hyperex.co.uk/)
    2. Eastgate (http://www.eastgate.com/), a company which publishes hypertext.
    3. One example of hyperliterature  -- the Wallace Stevens poem, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird – was recreated as short Flash animation pieces by British artist/writer Edward Picot: (http://www.edwardpicot.com/)
    4. The Electronic Literature Organization promotes the creation of electronic literature: (http://eliterature.org/) The collection page (http://collection.eliterature.org/) contains many excellent examples of electronic literature.
    5. The National Lambda Rail is a high speed computer network used by the academic and research community. It was designed to facilitate the work in these communities and go beyond what the Internet could do. http://en.wikipedia.org/

Chapter 4

  1. Link to the user-made commercials for the Chevy Tahoe, a Web competition that backfired in a major way: http://www.youtube.com/
  2. Link to Galatea, the interactive fiction piece by Emily Short (note that Java Version 7 is recommended to run it: http://nickm.com/if/

Chapter 6

  1. Link to the Alan Turing Internet Scrapbook, about the Turing test: http://www.turing.org.uk/scrapbook/
  2. Procedural animation, and various forms of it: http://atec.utdallas.edu/midori/
  3. Website of a company that builds avatars, with many examples of avatars: http://www.livingactor.com/en/
  4. Video of laughing stick figure avatar and avatars laughing: http://www.newscientist.com/
  5. Amusing video of two Chatterbots talking and arguing with each other: http://creativemachines.cornell.edu
  6. A text to speech tool where a character, a setting, an accent and a message can all be customized, using “Monkey Mail:” http://host-d.oddcast.com/php/

Chapter 8

Reports and Other Resources about Children and Media

  1. 2010 report on media consumption of children, Kaiser Family Report: Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds: http://kff.org/other/report
  2. AVG Digital Diaries, a 2014 study on how digital media is impacting on family life: http://www.avg.com/digitaldiaries/
  3. AVG Digital Diaries, a 2010 report on children and digital media: http://www.avg.com/digitaldiaries/2010
  4. YouTube Video of a frustrated little girl trying to manipulate a magazine like an iPad (A Magazine Is an iPad That Does Not Work): http://www.youtube.com/
  5.  MacArthur Foundation reports on Digital Media, Children and Learning: http://www.macfound.org/programs/learning/
  6. Nielsen Norman Group report: Children (Ages 3-12) on the Web: http://www.nngroup.com/reports/children-on-the-web/
  7. Children's Technology Review, an excellent resource for children's software, websites, and smart toys. This monthly publication is available both as a print publication and in electronic form, and a subscription also gives you access to its online archives, which include a stash of thousands of product reviews: www.childrenssoftware.com.
  8. 2012 Pew Research Report, Teens, Smartphones & Texting: http://www.pewinternet.org/2012/03/19/teens-smartphones-texting/
  9. Common Sense Media provides information on children, media and technology: http://www.commonsensemedia.org/

Reports and Other Resources about Women, Seniors and Other Types of Audiences

  1. Article on PopCap Study showing that women are particularly fond of social games: http://www.bizjournals.com/
  2. Silver Summit, the CES event on seniors and digital media: http://silverssummit.com/
  3. Information on Paro, the baby robotic seal and seniors:
  4. Wizard 101, a website for seniors and their grandchildren: https://www.wizard101.com/
  5. Re-Mission, a website and games for young cancer patients: http://www.re-mission.net/
  6. Live/Hope/Love, a website for Jamaicans struggling with HIV/Aids: http://www.livehopelove.com/
  7. JewishGen, a website for Jewish families trying to trace their family roots: http://www.jewishgen.org/
  8. eNativ, a website for ultra-orthodox Jews, that screens out for them content on the Web that is inappropriate to view: http://www.enativ.com/
  9. Trailers for Left Behind games, targeted at Christian teens: http://www.youtube.com/
  10. Website for Left Behind games: http://www.leftbehindgames.com/
  11. Veggie Tales, games for young Christian children: http://veggietales.com/vtmain/gamespage/
  12. It Takes a Thousand Voices, a website that encourages Native Americans to tell their own stories: http://www.nrcprograms.org/site/
  13. Cerrillos, New Mexico focuses on the little village of Cerrillos and stories of its residents: http://www.cerrillosnewmexico.com/
  14.  Ushahidi, a website to enable and promote citizen journalism: http://ushahidi.com/

Your Audience

Chapter 9

  1. GeoCities was one of the world's first social media sites, and a few of its pages have been archived: http://betabeat.com/2012/
  2. Hamlet on Facebook: http://www.angelfire.com/
  3. Twitter feed for a wolf: https://twitter.com/
  4. Videos for Lizzie Bennet Diaries: http://www.youtube.com/
  5. YouTube Symphony Orchestra: http://www.youtube.com/
  6. Grapes of Wrath Journey: http://www.steinbeck.org/
  7. Zynga social media games: http://zynga.com/
  8. Trailer for the social media movie, Inside: http://showcase.noagencyname.com/
  9. Website for The Social Sector: http://socialsector.usanetwork.com/
  10. The 2014 feature film, Chef, had a major social media theme. The main character, a chef in a trendy restaurant, has his career both ruined and redeemed by social media. You can get a sense of this from the trailer: http://www.fandango.com/chef_165720/movieoverview and also from the plot summary on Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chef_(film)
  11. Even monarchs are on Twitter! Queen Elizabeth of the UK recently sent out her first tweet: https://twitter.com/BritishMonarchy and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2806343/
  12. Dark Detour was a multi-platform story about a promising musician on a road trip, told primarily through social media. With a spooky, unsettling plot, it was designed as a Halloween experience and ran from Oct. 24 to Oct. 31. The plot summary and other details can be found at: http://www.darkdetour.com/home/ The story was partially funded through Indiegogo and actually exceeded its goal. The Indiegogo site includes a good description of the story and how it was offered (note that it was originally called Project Alibi): https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/project-alibi-a-multi-platform-ghost-story The story also included a fan club for the hero: http://talbotgriffinfanclub.com/forum/index.php/topic,36.0.html And some of us actually received a phone call from one of the weird and spooky characters.

Chapter 10

  1. Video aboutthe Swedish transmedia drama, The Truth About Marika: http://www.youtube.com/
  2. Dirty Work (Rides TV): http://rides.tv/dirty-work/
  3. Videoabout the international transmedia drama, The Spiral: http://www.youtube.com/
  4. Information about the international transmedia drama, The Spiral: http://www.ex-filmstudio.com/
  5. Website for Saligia-7, a Dutch transmedia zombie project: http://www.saligia-7.net/
  6. Article about The Due Return, a ship from the future: http://badatsports.com/2011/
  7. Website for the Traces of Hope game produced by the British Red Cross: http://www.gamesforchange.org/play/traces-of-hope/
  8. The website for Monster High, a transmedia project about the offspring of monsters: http://www.monsterhigh.com/en-us/index.html
  9. Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek, a transmedia documentary: http://www.nytimes.com/
  10.  TedX talks on transmedia: http://www.YouTube.com/
  11. Transmedia lab's case studies: http://www.dailymotion.com/playlist/
  12. Case studies and news about the field: http://storycode.org/
  13. An excellent timeline of Dexter's transmedia elements: http://www.transmedialab.org/en/
  14. Linkedin's transmedia storyteller's group: http://www.linkedin.com
  15. Linkedin's Transmedia Producers' group: http://www.linkedin.com

Chapter 11: Guidelines: Creating a New Project

Information on Writing Design Documents

Information on Prototyping:

Chapter 12: Using Digital Storytelling to Teach and Train

Resources:

The following websites provide a great deal of information on digital educational and digital training, and relevant conferences:

Chapter 13: Using Digital Storytelling for Promotion and Advertising

  1. iMedia Connection contains news and features covering the online marketing sector and often has good case studies: http://www.imediaconnection.com/
  2. For news and information about Mobile Marketing, go to http://www.mobilemarketer.com.
  3. Free Range Graphics produced The Meatrix and has made many other Flash animated advocacy cartoons:http://freerange.com/

Promotional videos, cartoons, apps and games

Chapter 14: Using Digital Storytelling to inform

General Information about Digital Storytelling and Information:

  1. The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism offers reports on traditional and digital media, as well as a daily briefing: http://www.journalism.org/
  2. iDocs is an organization devoted to interactive documentaries: http://i-docs.org/
  3. Storyful aggregates social media news stories and serves as a newswire for journalists: http://storyful.com/
  4. The relatively new job of “community manager” and what such a person does on this job is described here: http://socialfresh.com/

Chapter 15: Video Games

General information about video games and related topics:

  • Gamespot, which reviews games (www.Gamespot.com)
  • Moby Games, which also reviews games (http://www.mobygames.com/home).
  • The International Game Developers Association (www.igda.org)
  • The Entertainment Software Association, which is the official representative of the games industry and which collects interesting statistics: http://www.theesa.com/
  • Gamasutra (www.gamasutra.com)
  • What is gameplay? Here is a short article defining the term: http://www.techopedia.com/definition/1911/gameplay
  • Gamification Comes of Age, an article by Adam Swann about gamification: http://www.forbes.com/
  • Playing Research: Methodological approaches to game analysis, a paper by Espen Aarseth of the University of Bergen, a ludologists who believes that games should be studied as games and not as stories: http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au/
  • Janet Murray, who is a narratologist (someone who espouses that games are a form of storytelling), runs a blog called Inventing the Medium: http://inventingthemedium.com/
  • In a thoughtful and insightful article written for Gamasutra, an online site devoted to game development, veteran game writer Susan O'Connor discusses some of the issues that must be taken into account during the process of adaptation, assuming for the purpose of the article that one were trying to turn the TV show Breaking Bad into a game: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/
  • Before he passed away, the late Roger Ebert expounded on his famous and controversial statement: Video Games Can Never Be Art: http://www.rogerebert.com/

Chapter 16: The Internet

Please note that many examples of informational works made for the Internet can be found in Chapter 14.

Web Resources, Articles and Recent Web Hits:

Web Series

Comedy shorts

Faux blogs

Other Forms of Web Storytelling:

Chapter 17: Mobile Devices and Apps

General articles and resources

Works of Mobile Entertainment and Education

Chapter 18: Alternate Reality Games

General resources

  • Two websites have been established that focus exclusively on ARGs. They are:
  • What is an ARG? A website devoted to information about ARGs, including detailed stats about ARGs created not only for entertainment, but also for education: http://www.argology.org/
  • Website for Robert Pratten’s Transmedia Storyteller and Conducttr (a software tool for ARGs): http://www.tstoryteller.com/
  • Robert Pratten’s blog, highly informative, about transmedia storytelling and ARGs: http://www.tstoryteller.com/
  • This Is Not A Game: A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming: book on ARGs by ARG designer, the late Dave Szulborski: http://www.amazon.com/

Links to ARGs and materials about specific ARGs:

Chapter 19: Interactive Television

General Resources

Examples of iTV and iTV Apps

Chapter 20: Smart Toys and Robots

Specific Smart Toys and Robots

Chapter 21: Interactive Cinema

General information:

  • Labyrinth Center (database narratives): http://dornsife.usc.edu/
  • The iCinema Centre for Interactive Cinema Research at the University of New South Wales is another program to keep an eye on, even though a great deal of this program's emphasis is on virtual reality and other forms of immersive experiences. Nevertheless, its website (http://www.icinema.unsw.edu.au/) contains much of interest.
  • The Massachusetts Institute of Technology iCinema page is no longer active but does contain worthwhile archived material:  http://ic.media.mit.edu/
  • Beyond the Screen, book about interactive Cinema by Dr. Sarah Atkinson: http://www.amazon.com/
  • Examples of interactive documentaries can be found on the interactive section of the website of the National Film Board of Canada Interactive: https://www.nfb.ca/interactive/

Specific works of Interactive Cinema

Interactive Documentaries:

  • An article about Manuela's Children: http://www.asbaek.dk/
  • Clouds Over Cuba: http://cloudsovercuba.com/
  • Out My Windowportraysthe lives of high-rise dwellers across the world and was produced by National Film Board of Canada: http://interactive.nfb.ca/
  • Bear 71, about the life and death of a female grizzly bear, is another interactive documentary produced by the National Film Board of Canada: http://bear71.nfb.ca/#/bear71
  • Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek, produced by the New York Times, is a highly acclaimed interactive documentary about a disastrous avalanche: http://www.nytimes.com
  • The Jockey is another interactive documentary produced by the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/
  • What Killed Kevin?employs a multiple point of view approach and is about a magazine editor who was allegedly driven to suicide by his boss. The documentary was made by filmmaker Beverly Peterson: http://whatkilledkevin.com/
  • The Packard Plant. Big. Ugly. Dangerous. produced by the Detroit Free Press, focused on the enormous but crumbling plant that used to produce Packard automobiles. It had been shut for years, making it a target of vandals, graffiti artists and squatters: http://www.freep.com/article/
  • The Hollow, about a dying rural community in West Virginia: http://hollowdocumentary.com/

Chapter 22: Immersive Environments

Specific Works of Immersion

Chapter 23: Electronic Kiosks

Chapter 24: Working as a Digital Storyteller

Chapter 25: Creating your own Showcase

New, November 2014

Digital Storytelling is a notoriously fast-moving subject. The initial updates published on this website were brand new a few months ago, but since then there have been a host of new developments. The new developments and stories of interest are listed here using the same organizational structure as in the book, chapter by chapter. Areas with the richest developments include digital technology, of course, as well as mobile apps, transmedia, robotics, informational stories, and immersive environments. But almost every form of Digital Storytelling has experienced some new developments.

 

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

  • It may seem that technology is advancing at a breakneck pace, but people living back in 1776 almost certainly felt that way, too. In an amusing article, The Hottest Tech Trends in 1776, Shelley Palmer discusses some of the major innovations of that period, including the flush toilet, the improved steam engine and the kitchen sink: http://www.shellypalmer.com/2014/07/7-hottest-tech-trends-in-1776/
  • Digital Storytelling is often considered an educational tool or community-building tool rather than a form of entertainment. This article from the Huffington Post, How Digital Storytelling is Bridging Gaps And Preserving Cultures, discusses Digital Storytelling from the community-building perspective and shows how storytelling, combined with new technologies, is being utilized in India: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/t-j-cook/how-digital-storytelling-_b_5766946.html
  • One area that has seen tremendous growth in recent years is that of children's ebooks. Junko Yokota and William H. Teale discuss children's ebooks and how they can be evaluated in an article for The Reading Teacher. To find the article, Picture Books and the Digital World, go to the online archives of the publication and see Volume 8: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1002/trtr.1262.
  • Disney is becoming an innovation leader in children's ebooks, combining books with interactivity and gaming: http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2014/evolution-in-storytelling
  • Digital media continues to adversely impact traditional media. On Oct. 1, 2014, the venerable New York Times announced plans to lay off 100 positions in the news room: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/02/business/media/new-york
  • As a sign of faith in new media, Sundance, the organization founded by Robert Redford to support independent films, has established a new lab for emergent forms of storytelling. It's called The New Frontier Story Program.
  • The introduction of the Apple Watch was big news in September this year, though it won't actually be on the market until early 2015. Often, new developments in technology lead to new developments in storytelling. It remains to be seen if the Apple Watch can be utilized in narratives, but in the meantime, here are 3 articles about it:
  • Another new device is a tiny radio, developed by engineers at Stanford University. These radios are about the size of an ant, and so small that a great number of them can sit on top of a US penny. As reported in PC World on Sept. 11, 2014, tiny radios like these could potentially send and receive data via the Internet, but as with the Apple Watch, their potential in storytelling remains to be seen: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2646932/stanford-researchers-develop-antsized-radio.html
  • Wearable tech is not only a hot development for adults – wearable tech is also being produced for children. The first device on the market is the LeapBand activity tracker. Shaped like a toy watch, it combines the functions of a pedometer and cartoon animals like the Tamagotchi virtual pets of yore. It is not at all difficult to think of how this device could be used in storytelling, when you have virtual pets to play with. The pets offer challenges and activities to the young users. The activity tracker was described in PC Magazine on April 30, 2014: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2457410,00.asp

Chapter 4

Chapter 6

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 24

New, March 2015

In the past few months, since the November update of this website, there have been significant new developments in digital storytelling. One development that made national headlines was the FCC vote to protect the Internet as a public utility. This vote to preserve "Net Neutrality" means that the Internet remains a place for the free expression of ideas, where all forms of storytelling can take place without unfair competition. Links to articles about the FCC's vote and what it means to content creators can be found under Chapter 16, The Internet.

Interesting developments also occurred in the fields of social media, transmedia entertainment and virtual reality. Moreover, articles were published in recent months about virtually every area covered in the third edition of Digital Storytelling. Many have videos, as well. As with the previous update, this new information is arranged by chapter by chapter, with the same organization as in the book.

 

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 8

Chapter 1

Chapter 10

  • General discussion of transmedia and video case study of The Twilight Saga: http://storydisruptive.com/2014/11/19/building-successful-transmedia-strategies-the-twilight-saga-case-study-video/
  • Transmedia for children, focusing on the action adventure series Thunderbirds Are Go, from the Wellington Scoop: http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=75565
  • Article about a unique physical transmedia project, "House of Eternal Return," in which users explore a fully built out Victorian house with secret portals to the past. The work, still being constructed, is a spinoff of The Due Return ship, covered in the third edition of Digital Storytelling. From the Santa Fe New Mexican Jan. 30 2015: http://www.santafenewmexican.com/pasatiempo/columns/state_of_the_arts/
  • Ancient Mayan transmedia storytelling: I discovered a surprising twist to transmedia storytelling while on an archeological trip to Belize and Guatemala in early 2015. As with the ancient Egyptians, the ancient Maya of Mexico and Central America used many vehicles to tell stories that were of importance to them, particularly stories about their spiritual beliefs, deities and family lineage. Many of these stories were told in the sculptures, reliefs and painted panels of their huge temples and palaces. Another important vehicle for storytelling were their processions, which included costumed dancers wearing masks and drummers and other musicians. In addition, they acted out dramas on high platforms. They also painted images of these processional rituals on pots and they etched drawings of them on the walls and lintels of their buildings. The dancers were the avatars of the spiritual beings they portrayed. But the most unusual vehicle for their storytelling was the elaborate headdresses they wore, as portrayed on their stelae, or carved panels. The headdresses indicated their status and family history, and sometimes incorporated images of spiritual beings. See https://decipherment.wordpress.com/2013/06/ for an image of a headdress.

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 20

Toys:

Robots

Chapter 22

Chapter 24