ABSTRACT
Digital storytelling – a method used to create short audio-visual narratives that describe personal experiences – has been embraced by researchers and community workers as a means of enabling members of marginalised communities to share life experiences. Co-design is an important element of this approach. Digital storytelling functions as a narrative framework and research method to create compelling personal narratives. This approach has been popular in health and community advocacy work since the 1990s, but in recent years, the advent of the smartphone and social media has made it possible for people from all walks of life to create their own visual narratives and share these widely with a global audience. This raises the question: will the personal mobile digital storytelling tools that are now prevalent make the co-design process redundant? In this chapter, we draw on our experiences in a number of digital storytelling projects to consider the role of co-design in the creation and sharing of digital stories with people from marginalised groups. We argue that co-design is still important in these spaces, especially when the process of creating stories provides opportunities for people to explore complex life experiences and the product – the digital story – is used as a tool for raising awareness about sensitive issues. Co-designing and sharing digital stories with people from marginalised groups requires careful consideration of the context in which digital stories are created and where and how they might be shared in order to ensure an engaged audience response.
