cyberdrama and digital drama

Cyberdrama and digital technologies-Exploring the possibilities

Sue Davis

[email protected]

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mailto:[email protected]

What do we love about drama?

• We want to recognise and hold on to what is important about our live processes and experiences

• And look at how they can be extended upon and complemented as we embrace online communications and digital technologies

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Why should we go there?

• 87% of kids ages 12-17, use the Internet

• 57% of teens who use the Internet have created a blog or webpage, posted original artwork, photography, stories or videos online or remixed online content into their own new creations.

PEW Internet & American Life Project

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Today‟s generation of youth have three core needs community, self-expression and personalisation, and that these core needs are met through their use of

media and technology. Key technology uses revolve around music, the Internet and mobile devices.

Yahoo/OMD ‘Truly, Madly, Deeply’ Report

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Growth in participatory culture and spaces for sharing user-generated content

e.g. youtube & myspace

Digital content creation key growth area in creative industries

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Why use cyberspaces?

• Encourage participation and collaboration

• Build a community of creative practice

• Create and build the drama using multiple modes and media

• Talk about and reflect on the drama

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What can these tools and spaces add to the drama experience and learning?

• Collaborative possibilities outside of the drama „classroom‟

• Creative collaborations online to build drama and content

• Potential for creating roles and the world of the drama in a very rich way (profiles, imagery, environment)

• Opportunities to communicate and reflect

• Build different kinds of skills – multi-media, online communications, interactive processes

• Audiences for the work

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Cyberdrama –Janet Murray 1997

“I have referred to these various new kinds of narrative under the single umbrella term of cyberdrama because the coming digital story form... Like the novel or the movie, will encompass many different formats and styles but will essentially be a single distinctive entity. It will not be an interactive this or that, however much it may draw upon tradition, but a reinvention of storytelling itself for the new digital medium... As a new generation grows up, it will take participatory form for granted and will look for ways to participate in ever more subtle and expressive stories(Murray 1997, 271)”

10-Aug-12 cyberdrama.org - Sue Davis 8

Aspects from my experiences of cyberdrama

• participants taking on role

• engaged in a fictional world

• the potential for interaction

• development of a story or narrative

• enactment in a digital space

• drama unfolds over time, it is not just an image –the notion of tension is related here.

• shared experience of the story, with audience and participant being co-present at some point.

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Place/space„Real‟ World <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Virtual World

Time„Real‟ time <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Created Time

CharactersPredetermined, rehearsed <<<<<<<<<><<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Improvised, open

EmbodimentLive/human <<<< Mediated <<<<<<< Re-mediated>>>>>>> Artificial Intelligence

Text & lexiaWritten Text or one kind of lexia<<<<<<>>>>>>> Multi-media/Multi-modal lexia

Narrative FlowClosed <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Work in movement >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Open

Ergodic Intrigue/Dramatic Tension

Dramatic hooks & questions <<<<<<<>>>>> Searching for the pathway to the next lexia or out

Text CreationPreconceived/fixed <<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Improvised/developmental

Playwright/Author FunctionSingle author function <<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>> Multiple participant author function

AudienceClearly delineated audience <<<<<<>>>>>>> No audience other than participants

Audience/InteractionInteraction through viewing only <<<<<>>>>> Interaction which changes the text

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Use of Computer-mediated communications

Out of role

• Forums

• Blogs & wikis, twitter

• Talking to artists/leaders in chatrooms

• Documenting process

• Planning & Reflecting

In role

• Blogs, wikis,

• chats in role (skype, BB collaborate, waterwheel)

• Online role play (Upstage, second life, some gaming sites)

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Components and content• Character profiles

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Images & Photo

Stories

Video & clips Emails

Wiki/blog diary

style entries

Forums in

or out of

role

Key component – building role & narrative

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Interaction opportunities for participants and users

• Laying trails (making offers) and seeing what the participant and user groups respond to (Haseman 2001 and

Simons 2001)

• Weaving these into the developing drama

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Blog postings in role – reacting to others -asynchronous

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Chats in role – real time synchronous

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Out of role

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Drama specific Social - group Multi-media

literacies

e-learning Reflective

practice

Roleplay &

improvisation

Role development

Monologue

Skills of

performance –

acting for film

Skills audit –

group formation

ensuring skills in

different areas

Collaboration vs

group

Group norms

(e.g. ANSN)

Taking photos,

resizing,

manipulating

Internet

publication issues

File compression

and conversion

uploading (jpg

format for photos,

mpeg4, quicktime

or wmv etc for

video)

Posting material

to the Internet

(e.g. Youtube,

Ning, etc)

Accessing &

using Blackboard

or online learning

platform

‘In role’ and ‘out

of role’ spaces

Protocols for

communication

Copyright in

schools/child

protection

Using the blog &

the wiki, what’s

the difference

Modelling journal

writing

Contribution to

Communications

spaces on forums

Learning about

ideas and

experiences

Different kinds of learning that need attention when

working with Drama and Digital Technologies

Considerations

• For participant/creators, provide agency and control through input into role creation, improvisation within frames, performance framed by technology -reduce time spent formally rehearsing, writing, learning lines

• Need to build community and audience for Internet based drama (possible convergence with other events/forms of communications)

• If there is to be a user group outside of participant/creator group, create ways to enroll them and provide significant reward for effort


In educational contexts – restricted internet access within schools – societal expectations about what does

on in school as „educative‟

• Concerns about predators approaching young people

• Concerns about cyberbullying

• Concerns about nature of content young people will post

• Concerns about how young people will represent themselves

• Expectations invested in the teacher, organiser, moderator role to monitor young people’s interacions

• Copyright issues


Implications??

• Different spaces for different purposes

• Protocols for communications

• Awareness of CMC consequences (permanence) language and genres

• „Real tasks‟ for out of role & in role work

• Teacher modelling and interaction in the processes

• Use the dramatic or fictional context

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Questions you need to consider for creating your own drama

• What is the hook, question or problem that you want to explore?

• What kind of pre-text can you use or create

• What kinds of roles can participants create and operate from early on to build their commitment to the drama? Who are the drama leaders and what kinds of roles do they take on?

• Who is your audience – how will they find out about the drama, what kind of interactivity will be possible?

• How might the characters be embodied and realized? What makes a character interesting? How will this be expressed through text?


• What kinds of different characters do we have and what kinds of purpose will they have?

• What might be the initial complication or source of tension?

• What styles and genre/s will the drama use? Consider traditional dramatic ones such as tragedy, mystery, farce as well as popular cultural genres such as soap opera, mockumentary and television news.

• What kinds of dramatic and film conventions can be used for each frame of the drama (these don‟t all need to be planned or finalized when you begin the drama)

• How will the drama be shared? Only online or will there be a live performance, presentation or sharing. If there are both live and online components, how will they inter-relate?


Examples of projects

• Lonely girl 15 – the classic webdrama http://www.lg15.com

My MA & PhD projects

• cleo-missing.com (2005 – pre YouTube) university students using a website with options for posting texts, video and audio content, audience input through forums

• The Immortals using Education Queensland Learning Place project room and virtual classroom (including blog and wiki), but also YouTube and Ning social networking site

• Noosa Scrubs & Shapeshifters using Ning sites & virtual classrooms

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