Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives, Creating Community

by Joe Lambert

Listen deeply. Tell stories. This is the mantra of the Center for Digital Storytelling (CDS) in Berkeley California, which, since 1998 has worked with nearly 1,000 organizations around the world and trained more than 15,000 people in the art of digital storytelling. In this revised and updated edition of the CDS's popular guide to digital storytelling, co-founder Joe Lambert details the history and methods of digital storytelling practices. Using a "7 Steps" approach, Lambert helps storytellers identify the fundamentals of dynamic digital storytelling--from seeing the story, assembling it, and sharing it. As in the last edition, readers of the fourth edition will also find new explorations of the applications of digital storytelling and updated appendices that provide resources for budding digital storytellers, including information about past and present CDS-affiliated projects and place-based storytelling, a narrative-based approach to understanding experience and landscape. A companion website further brings the entire storytelling process to life. Over the years, the CDS's work has transformed the way that community activists, educators, health and human services agencies, business professionals, and artists think about story, media, culture, and the power of personal voice in creating change. For those who yearn to tell multimedia stories, Digital Storytelling is the place to begin.

Genres: Nonfiction, Research, Writing

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Megan Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives, Creating Community, Joe Lambert asks his audience to consider the ways stories circulate and how “ordinary stories become extraordinary journeys” (10), that lead to a sense of increased social agency and connection among individuals and communities. The book provides a theoretical and methodological framework along with guidelines that help storytellers understand the fundamentals and purpose of dynamic digital storytelling. Building on work already compiled by those who call for an increased inclusion of multimodal methods and participatory media to engage students (Selfe, DeVoss & Hicks, Halbritter, Wysocki), Lambert’s book speaks to the ways digital storytelling practices have far-reaching benefits for a myriad of individuals, organizations, and communities both inside and outside of the classroom. The text is not meant to be read as a textbook, but rather as a collection of thoughts that have grown out of Lambert’s 20 years of experience as the director of the Center for Digital Storytelling (CDS). Mostly, the text focuses on the gathering of personal stories into “short little nuggets of media called Digital Stories” (1) through a methodology Lambert calls Digital Storytelling. However, as the text shows, the applications of those “nuggets of media” have far-reaching applications in the lives of individuals, organizations, and communities.

[Mills College Library]

372.677 L2225 2018

[Kendra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very accessible approach to creating digital stories. The fundamentals of creating a digital story are provided in easy-to-understand chapters with examples provided throughout. The very personal tone of the book aligned well with the goal of the work--which is to arm readers with enough knowledge to transform them into powerful digital storytellers who tell stories in their simplest and most eloquent form possible.

[Tara Brabazon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have bought each edition of this book. This 4th edition captures the twenty year history of the Center for Digital Storytelling.

This is a fine guide for teachers and community facilitators in running workshops to enable digital storytelling. There is a strong discussion of ethics and the relationship with the PhotoVoice movement.

While there is some attention to technology, this area is becoming less relevant to the movement as the software becomes more pervasive and intuitive and - rightly - the story gains predominance.

A fine book and an ideal book for people wanting a pathway into digital storytelling.

[Tara Brabazon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A moving and well written book, Lambert is able to temper the utopic and democratizing ideology of digitization, while also showing how digital storytelling can be used to address analogue injustice. What makes the book strong is the focus on digital literacy as the connection between 'capturing' stories and building a community from them. There are also a range of inspiring interviews (dialogues) with practitioners.

It is a beautifully constructed book, well balanced and evocatively written. I was reading it for research, but it was also a pleasure to move through the pages.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly insightful and easy to read. More useful for my PhD than any strictly academic text.

Ironically, the documentation and communication long-run aspects that Lambert expresses a desire for lie in social media which he dismisses as a waste.

[Nancy Babbitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joe Lambert’s Digital Storytelling: Capturing, Creating Community (2009) is a good resource to use in gaining insight into community building in the digital world. Lambert has provided examples and narratives of many successful community-building projects around the world.

[Jocelyn]

Discussed in Residency Day Two. Handouts for Day 2 from this book.

[Rachael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent advice for the beginning facilitator.

Minus one star for really shoddy editing.