The Role of New Media in Communicating and Shaping Older Adult Stories

摘要

Older adults are finding new ways to communicate their stories and one way is through digital storytelling. This study examined a selection of ten older adults' digital stories to explore how they used multimedia in their stories. It was found that older adults use media in different ways to express their life narratives. The stories either followed the narration across a lifespan or centered around a single event. Stories often brought the topic into a reflection on life as a whole. Images were used to display historical pictures of people and places, or they were used in more implicit expressions such as visual metaphors. A further examination of a reflective journal of one individual's process in creating the digital story, and the multimedia choices used, was also examined. The visual and aural choices made by the participant suggest that they were made to enhance the story; however, the media appeared to simultaneously shape the participant's understanding of their story. The act of putting images and sound together with a life narrative can serve not only to enhance the story, but to shape its telling and the storyteller's understanding.