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Digital Storytelling Method

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Handbook of Research Methods in Health Social Sciences

Abstract

Digital stories are short (2–3 min) videos using first-person voice-over narration synthesized with visual images created in situ or sourced from the storyteller’s personal archive. Digital storytelling (DST) is a codified process, originating in the 1990s as part of a community development arts initiative to mobilize voices marginalized by dominant, institutionalized media. Rooted in the rapid emergence of arts-based health research, DST is used in health promotion research and practice, public health and community-based participatory research, and multidisciplinary fields such as psychiatry, disability studies, and social work, covering a range of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health topics and perspectives. In this chapter, we describe a case study in children’s mental health, which combined DST and traditional ethnographic and participatory analysis methods. Exemplars from the case study are used to initiate critical dialogue about DST, inspired by key methodological questions raised by education, cultural, and media scholars, but generally lacking in health and social science scholarship.. We consider how multiple human and institutional actors negotiate and shape the story told and the extent to which narrative constraints imposed by DST problematize claims around “voice” and representation. We conclude with thinking about the “after life” of digital stories, including how singular narratives can connect the personal and the structural to effect real social change.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dalla Lana School of Public Health, Centre for Critical Qualitative Health Research, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Brenda M. Gladstone

  2. Child and Youth Mental Health Research Unit, SickKids, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Elaine Stasiulis

  3. Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Elaine Stasiulis

Authors
  1. Brenda M. Gladstone
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  2. Elaine Stasiulis
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Brenda M. Gladstone .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Science and Health, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW, Australia

    Pranee Liamputtong

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© 2019 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

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Gladstone, B.M., Stasiulis, E. (2019). Digital Storytelling Method. In: Liamputtong, P. (eds) Handbook of Research Methods in Health Social Sciences. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5251-4_11

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