How can a digital storytelling project be formed? In this series we present projects from around the world to give you inspiration to your work with digital storytelling.

Several projects about digital storytelling have evolved since Joe Lambert and Dana Atchley first came up with the idea of making workshops with digital stories in 1993.

Digital Faith Storytelling is a project founded by a professor of Oslo University, Knut Lundby. The DUSTY program from California has inspired the project in the sense of letting youth use digital storytelling to express themselves. Alike the previously presented projects, the principles of CDS are applied to the process of making stories.

The project is funded by the Norwegian government and aims to try out new forms of religious education in Norway. The Digital Faith Storytelling project engages a selection of 14-18-year-old young people in raising questions about faith and identity. During the participant in the project the young people makes a digital story related to the religious tradition of the Norwegian folk church (Intermedia.no).

In a scientific research perspective, the Digital Faith Storytelling project aims to:
”… explore how people – youth in particular – use self-representation in digital storytelling to shape and share their lives, and tries to understand these processes through theories of mediation and mediatization across media studies and the field of education.” (Lundby, from Hartley, in press)

In the quote above, I find an explanation on why digital storytelling is gaining so much popularity in the scientific fields of education and media studies. It seems to be the work with self-representation that makes digital storytelling so unique. Telling stories obviously has another important function, besides just sharing knowledge. According to Lundby digital storytelling is bringing clarity to the participants’ work with self-representation and this is might what digital storytelling is good for.