Digital storytelling, as is developed by StoryCenter founders Joe Lambert and Hessler Brooke, is understood as “digital stories [that] are short (2-5 minute) videos that rely on still and moving images, a soundtrack, narration, and other components to tell a story” (Fisanick and O. Stakeley, p.2). This model of digital story is expanded in the now sixth edition of Digital Storytelling: Story Work for Urgent Times by Lambert and Brooke. Leah Henrickson, in her book Digital Storytelling: An Introduction, challenges the StoryCenter model by redefining digital story as one that “produces effect and affect through intertwingularity, transformativity, interactivity and embodiment, and multimodality” (Henrickson, p.16). Both models share the commonality of emotions— that digital stories should move the viewer, reader, or listener (Henrickson; Lambert and Brooke). Here, I will look at three stories from CNN’s As Equals series, which tell stories on gender inequality, in the form of web or online articles. In reviewing the three stories, I intend to bridge the ideas of Lambert and Brooke with Henrickson’s idea of what a digital story is. The aim is to understand choices storytellers make in conjunction with what emotional impact these choices have—their “effect" (Henrickson, pp. 21-23).
The first story I will review is “Exposing a global ‘rape academy’” by Saskya Vandoorne, Kara Fox, Niamh Kennedy, Eleanor Stubbs, and Marco Chacon. The story begins with a content warning, after which, we are introduced to a man named Piotr (Vandoorne et al.). As we scroll, information is slowly revealed, and eventually, the page zooms out, revealing faceless drawings with text messages featuring graphic content, much of which is censored (Vandoorne et al.). Visuals now include blank video and image frames with emoji reactions, plus pills (Vandoorne et al.). They slowly fade in. All these elements work together to elicit a reaction from the reader, most likely one of outrage— what Henrickson calls “affect,” the emotional impact (Henrickson, pp.23-27). This is evidenced not only by the graphic context, but also by the aesthetic choices themselves: the dark background, which transitions into a plain black backdrop; the slow animations, combined with the negative space. These aesthetics grant room for the reader to sit with the information; to absorb it in its entirety.
Henrickson says that “affect can prompt emotions, and emotions can prompt affect” (Henrickson, p.25). These early animations and visuals are the “affective qualities of a story,” which “give that story its oomph” (Henrickson, p.24). In other words, "affective qualities" are what create the emotional impact, and in so doing, what "makes the story stick with us" (Henrickson, p.23-24). Lambert and Brooke in Chapter 5 of their book, “Seven Steps of Digital Storytelling,” define “explicit imagery”— outside of its graphic definition— and “implicit imagery” (Lambert and Brooke, pp.73-74). Here, “explicit imagery” references an image or photograph that directly correlates with what the storyteller is saying, whilst “implicit imagery” is an image, the meaning of which, the audience needs to interpret (Lambert and Brooke, pp.73-74). Returning to the story, “implicit imagery” is deliberately chosen in place of “explicit imagery” in the case of how the story shows text messages. Instead of screenshots, standalone visuals are created. These generate the “affective qualities” that the earlier visuals created by making use of negative space (Henrickson, p.23). The reader looks at the text bubbles, with their graphic content, and can pause. There is no distraction one may find in a screenshot. At the same time, there is room here to argue that the use of screenshots may be more impactful emotionally. This is because the reader here must trust that what they are shown is what is explicit in what they are not being shown—the original text message itself.
The understanding of Lambert and Brooke, regarding “affect” of visuals, are better seen in the next story I will be reviewing (Henrickson, pp.23-27). This story is titled “A long road to freedom: Despite risks of detention or death more women are finding ways to leave Afghanistan” by Sashikala VP. This piece uses photographs with one data visualization in telling its story alongside text (VP). In contrast to the first story, there are no animations, nor a slow delivery of information. Some emotional impact is lost because there is no room for the reader to sit with the information as the format rather invites the reader to continue reading. However, the reaction of outrage is still there, because the story covers the topic of burqas. One need not look farther then when One Nation Leader Paul Hanson wore a burqa during a parliament session to see how divisive the topic of burqas can be. This "affect" is compounded by the personal details of Fatima's story, particularly with the graphic descriptions of abuse and torture she endured (Henrickson, pp.23-27; VP). What this piece does well in capturing this emotional impact is the use of juxtaposition, which Lambert and Brooke define as “the placement of one image beside or followed by another to generate meaning” (Lambert and Brooke, pp.73). The first story layers its information and visuals, whereas here we see images speaking to each other.
A great example of such reactive juxtaposition, which may be termed affective juxtaposition, is the placement of a photograph of Fatima with that of Afghanis walking to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border (VP). The “affective qualities of the story” are then derived from the composition of the photographs—their content (Henrickson, p.24). Much can be said of what the photograph, that of Fatima, and the Afghanis walking, are doing. For instance, the second image visualizes a path Fatima had to cross at a given point in time. The photographs generate a “visual narrative,” one of multimodality as the photographs in of themselves are also able to tell a story (Lambert and Brooke, p.72; Henrickson). For example, the photograph of Taliban members on a motorcycle, near a group of women in burqas, can be interpreted by audiences for “implicit meaning that goes beyond what one or the other image explicitly means on its own”(VP; Lambert and Brooke, p.74). Finally, here, it is worth noting that one of the images seems to no longer be available (VP). This breaks the visual narrative, and in so doing, may remove the reader temporarily as it puts authenticity to question, which in effect leads to a different emotional impact than may be wanted.
In thinking of affective juxtaposition, the work of negative space, forms of imagery, and juxtaposition itself, the ways Henrickson's ideas bridge with those of Lambert and Brooke are made apparent. In the final story, “Why work is (still) not working for women," these elements come to harmony. Affective juxtaposition comes by way of data visualizations, where as statistics they engage the reader by inviting them to scroll the content of the boxes. The boxes make use of negative space similar to how the text bubbles earlier on did. They allow for a reader to sit, whilst offering the affective juxtaposition, because it is one thing to read the numbers, and another to see them come to life through charts.