In the digital era, digital storytelling has become an essential instrument for cultural institutions, educators, and creators seeking to communicate meaningfully with a wide and diverse audience. This narrative form, which blends multimedia tools with storytelling techniques, not only makes content more engaging but also fulfils deep cultural and social functions.

A facilitator of communication

Digital storytelling serves as a facilitator in communication, offering accessible and emotionally resonant formats to convey complex information. By using images, voice, video, and interactivity, it transforms passive consumption into active engagement. Scholars such as Handler and Miller (2008), De Felice (2014), and Schoenau-Fog et al. (2015) highlight its role in shaping immersive and emotionally rich experiences that stimulate learning and reflection.

Democratizing cultural content

Beyond communication, digital storytelling has the power to democratize access to culture. By utilizing inclusive language and non-academic approaches, it allows more people to access, understand, and contribute to cultural narratives. As noted by Cataldo (2011), Bonacini (2018), and Van Dyke and Bernbeck (2015), it fosters an environment where cultural heritage is no longer confined to institutions but shared among communities.

Narrative functions in digital storytelling

Digital storytelling also fulfils eight key narrative functions that contribute to both individual and collective development:

1. Communitarian: it supports the construction of shared meaning, helping to strengthen community bonds and collective identity.
2. Referential: it acts as a vehicle for the transmission of knowledge, making complex subjects accessible and understandable.
3. Empathic: through emotional storytelling, it evokes empathy and emotional involvement, essential for lasting engagement.
4. Mnestic: it enables the preservation and transmission of memory, passing traditions and experiences between generations.
5. Identity: stories help in the construction of personal and collective identity, reinforcing a sense of belonging.
6. Value-based: narratives transmit values and ethical principles, helping shape attitudes and cultural norms.
7. Trampoline: storytelling offers a lens through which the past can inform the future, stimulating reflection and foresight.
8. Connective: it fosters connections between institutions and heritage, individuals and communities, reinforcing networks of cultural meaning.

Inclusion and participation

Digital storytelling encourages a participatory culture, inviting individuals and communities to co-create and share their stories. This approach values local perspectives and voices that are often underrepresented, supporting a more pluralistic and inclusive vision of cultural heritage.

Conclusion

Digital storytelling is a transformative tool that integrates communication, memory, identity, and empathy into a single powerful practice. By embracing its multiple narrative functions, institutions and creators can not only share content more effectively, but also build lasting cultural connections, promote inclusion, and shape the future through the stories of the past.

Written by Lisa Pigozzi from the University of Milano-Bicocca

Sources: 

Handler Miller, C. (2008). Digital storytelling: A creator’s guide to interactive entertainment (2nd ed.). Focal Press.

Cataldo, L. (2011). Dal museum theatre al Digital Storytelling: Nuove forme della comunicazione museale fra teatro, multimedialità e narrazione (pp. 37–40). Franco Angeli.

De Felice, G. (2014). Racconti dalla terra. L’archeologia fra narrazione digitale e patrimonio culturale (pp. 69–84). Edipuglia.

Schoenau‑Fog, H., Bruni, L. E., Louchart, S., & Bacevičiūtė, S. (Eds.). (2015). Interactive Storytelling: 8th International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling, ICIDS 2015, Copenhagen, Denmark, November 30 – December 4, 2015. Proceedings (Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 9445). Springer

Van Dyke, R. M., & Bernbeck, R. (Eds.). (2015). Subjects and Narratives in Archaeology: Alternative narratives and the ethics of representation (pp. 1–26). University Press of Colorado.

Bonacini, E. (2018). Digital participatory tools for territorial promotion: The #iziTRAVELSicilia case study. In Proceedings of the First International Conference in Smart Tourism. Turin, Italy.