12 years ago
Producing and Sharing Digital Stories to Build Community
Monday, September 26, 2011
Opportunities for youth to produce and publish digital media have never been as bountiful as they are today, with the Internet being an available and accessible vehicle for sharing those products. Sasha Mackay, a PHD student, is currently studying how young people in rural and isolated regions of Australia can use storytelling and digital media as methods for having a voice and constructing their own identities. A full news article and accompanying podcast of her September, 2011 radio interview can be found at: Digital Storytelling: Research for rural youth
Sasha herself is a previous contributor to and winner of Heywire, an online community designed to create a shared conversation amongst young people in rural and regional Australia. She explains that using the publishing space in Heywire, young people can create profiles and upload videos, photographs and stories so that other people can know who they are. She believes this publishing of digital stories in a range of formats is a way for rural youth to be in touch with other people, and develop a sense of community they otherwise wouldn’t have, as well as making a positive contribution to debunking stereotypes about youth living in rural areas.
Sasha’s PHD proposal is to interview the young people who have told their stories on the Heywire website, and find out what being in touch with people by sharing personal stories means to them. She highlights the potential that such a specialised online community might also have in other countries where youth are even more marginalized than those in regional parts of Australia.
According to Heywire (2011), belonging to their community allows members access to like-minded peers who share common aspirations, and are confronted with similar problems. The competition element of Heywire enables winners to have their stories heard beyond the immediate Heywire community - throughout the ABC network, as well as the opportunity to participate in person at the annual Heywire Youth Issues Forum in Canberra, where members of parliament meet and discuss with regional youth contemporary issues of rural Australia.
Heywire is managed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and as such provides an alternative to Facebook and other general online communities for youth wishing to produce and share their stories with their peers. (The ABC claim that their close monitoring and management mean that publishers have no risk of receiving inappropriate responses to their work, nor will there be any offensive material published.) Having said that, the online community is not a closed community, so there is still the opportunity for the digital stories produced and published for the website to be viewed by the wider public, and for the rural youth of Australia to develop an identity beyond the membership of Heywire. There is also a comprehensive area on the website dedicated to informing educators of the potential to purposefully integrate participation in the Heywire community into both English and Multimedia senior curriculum.
After reading many of the digital stories that have been produced and shared by our rural and isolated youth, I was able to appreciate the passion for the land that emerged as a common thread among the stories that were shared, along with the authors’ common desire for the greater Australian community to understand and appreciate their sense of identity and their love of their life on the land. Mission is certainly accomplished as far as I am concerned!
This blog entry was posted by Bronwyn White
This blog entry was posted by Bronwyn White
I think back to the era when I was a teen, in the late 70s, I felt like I had been socially disadvantaged because I lived on a property forty-five minutes from town. My parents were either too busy or it was not convenient for them to drive me into town to catch up socially with my friends, so needless to say it did not happen very often. Back then there was no Internet or mobile phones and the only contact with my friends over the school holidays was to use a permanently attached telephone hooked up in our living room where the whole family could listen in on private conversations. Upon returning to school I would get to catch up with my friends and learn how they had had impromptu get togethers over the holidays because they all lived close to one another. I would be full of envy!
Today the Internet offers a number of websites that have the aim of linking like youths together. ‘Heywire’ is one such site, which offers a safe connection to youth from regional areas around Australia. I have found some of the stories published to be very moving. In retrospect, sites like ‘Heywire’ offer today’s youth in regional areas a way to enhance their social skills through sharing stories and this is one safe way for them to develop their identity.
Such a good example of how the internet can allow “production” for everyone Bronwyn. 'Heywire' illustrates the benefit of focussing on a particular community, especially one which is in a minority position and doesn’t have a large voice in the general media, but nevertheless has an important and valid viewpoint. This is supported by one of the voices in the YouTube video SaveOurNet.ca. (2010) which I refer to in my blog post “Online Resource - YouTube”. In it one of the supporters of net neutrality discusses the importance of keeping the internet available to all voices, in a way that traditional mass media does not. A good crossover between regulation and production here, as we’ve referred to with our circuit of culture model. I like the way 'Heywire' is supported by the ABC in an effort to stop inoffensive and inappropriate comments as well – sounds like a good partnership and protection of some of the identity issues discussed elsewhere in our blog.
I wonder what Sash Mackay, the PhD student, will find out about what it means to the young writers to use this online community. As you say, it certainly has fulfilled its idea of giving them a voice.
I notice you do not have any references at the end of the post and wondered if you might need to list some to submit it for the assignment. Unless it is an extra post you’ve done?
Reference
SaveOurNet.ca. (2010, October 10). Saving Canada’s Internet [video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hKbPpizEDBM#!