DIGITAL STORYTELLING DESIGN LEARNING FROM NON-DIGITAL NARRATIVES: TWO CASE STUDIES IN SOUTH AFRICA

Abstract

Digital tools for User Generated Content (UGC) aim to enable people to interact with media in conversational and creative ways that are independent of technology producers or media organisations. In this article we describe two case studies in South Africa that show that UGC is not simply something tied to technology or the internet but emerges in non-digital storytelling. At the District Six Museum in Cape Town, District Six ex-residents are central collaborators in the narratives presented. Ex-residents tell stories in the museum and can write onto inscriptive exhibits, such as a floor map showing where they used to live, and visitors can write messages on ‘memory clothes’, which are later preserved through hand embroidery. Such explicit infrastructures to access and protect cultural records are less available to rural inhabitants of the former Transkei. To address this gap local traditional leaders and villagers collaborated with a National Archives Outreach Programme by co-generating a workshop that linked various local priorities, such as representation to government, land rights and ecotourism to natural and cultural heritage. Both studies start to reveal opportunities to design technologies that increase participation in recording and sharing personal and cultural stories. They also show the need to respect values embedded in place-based oral customs, such as the importance of enabling transparency and supporting alternative views on historical events.