Digital Storytelling and Multimodal Anthropology

This class examined transformations in the way we narrate stories in the digital context. Rather than the "end of narrative,” the dominance of the database, algorithms and platforms seems to have ushered in a new cultural logic of storytelling. The explosion in the production of user-generated content and the possibilities for the recombination of audiovisual elements has led to the creation of countless micro-narratives that are shared within - and as - a network. These practices have shattered basic concepts - like creator, work, public, art – developed in relation to literary and filmic narratives of the 20th century.

The aim of this particular class was to take stock of these developments both as a social phenomenon and as catalysts for us - as creators of narratives of the social. In other words: instead of denigrating new forms of digital storytelling as the "demise" of contemporary culture, we will try to take inspiration to develop ways to communicate our ideas and research in anthropology differently. We will consider, furthermore, if these narrative experiments can contribute to the development of a program of public anthropology and of experimental humanities.

This course had a laboratory format, combining theoretical discussion with hands-on exercises (tiktok ethnography, podcasts, desktop cinema) while working to cultivate a collaborative ethos among us. Students will learn basic technical skills of working with audiovisual material (recording, montage, storyboard).

Invited speakers specializing in cultural critique and cultural production related to new media shared their work throughout the course.

All the students participated in small groups which created multimedia works that were screened and presented in the context of the international anthropological conference The Virtual, Otherwise, 2-4 June.

Associate Professor Penelope Papailias, University of Thessaly

EHCN Partners Involved

Related Projects

The second season of the Apo to Pempto (Broadcasting from the 5th floor!) podcast takes up the politics of naming and particularly the geographical, social and cultural dimensions of names, gendered genealogies and essentialisms. The podcasts were created for the undergraduate class Digital Storytelling and Multimodal Anthropology.

Polga < Olga < Helga

Olga Parthenidou-Fotou | 7’

Summary: You have seven minutes at your disposal to speak about your name. Don’t ask me what you will say, just say the first thing that come to mind. Don’t tell a banal story though. If you need to, tell a lie… Put in two or three different geographical locations, demonstrate an interesting trajectory that your name has made over time… Add a little sauce, a little spice… and why not throw in that you have two last names instead of one. Wait, what am I saying? That’s all true!

Morosouolaomicron

Dimitra Morosou | 7’

Summary: How political can a first and last name be? Affect is engrained in words but also sounds. A podcast syncs with the time and place that you find yourself and hear a voice that is purposely warped on your headphones. Parallel sounds create a soundscape that exhorts you to perceive yourself as an listener within an experience.

Nefeli. Identity or insight?

Nefeli Zioga

Summary: Nefeli (in Greek “cloud”), a name connected to myth and nature, introduces herself. A flashback through the sounds and etymology of the name demands e-motion on a narrative level. Care and acceptance is the final stage.

This year’s podcast productions aimed to be more artistic productions centered on subjectivies, relations and environments, rather than the “journalistic” or the logocentric style of making podcasts («radio» presenter, talking heads). Thus, the focus was on the formation of soundscapes and the capturing of everyday “ambient” sounds or digital sounds, as a way to explore how we can “do sensory ethnography” or how to do ethnography by exploiting the ontology of sound (as a non-static materiality) to address anthropological concepts and methodologies, such as reflexivity, researcher’s positionality, or how to “bring the atmosphere” of an interview, etc.

Organized by Penelope Papailias, University of Thessaly

Assistant: Penny Paspali, University of Thessaly

Read about Season 1 of the podcast

This text is also available in English

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Digital Storytelling and Multimodal Anthropology