Mobile Storytelling and Video Sharing for Inter-Cultural Communication:

How Personal Expression Leads to Job Skills

John Kuner

Digital Vision Fellow, Stanford Universityjkuner@mobilestorytelling.org

Overview

• Individual media creation is a growing trend that has strong impact

• Personal and professional media has huge growth in the developing world

• Industry and Government build on these to create new jobs and new industries

New Media

• “Web 2.0” economy is based on content creation with global interchange

• Video creation is especially effective

• Learn digital skills

• Personal expression & life skills

• View & connect globally

3D animation, photography, web design

video--gaming, filming, editing, archiving…

Recipe for a Story

1. Point of View2. Dramatic Question3. Emotional Content4. The Gift of Your Voice 5. The Power of the Soundtrack6. Economy 7. Pacing

Source: The Center for Digital Storytelling's Cookbook (Lambert, 2006)

Digital Story example

http://www.jumpcut.com/view?id=BD9773941DCA11DCAC41000423CF0184

Digital Storytelling Benefits

• Individual narrative becomes digital media

• Also creates a more level playing field -- kids, Ze Frank, David Letterman, and YOU all have videos on the web that anyone can access

Importance of Cell Phones

• Cell phone market is massive

• Over 2 billion sold in 20 years

• Next billion in the next 3 years; mostly from developing world

• Cell phones surpassing landlines

http://www.kiwanja.net/gallery/handsets/kiwanja_handsets_13.jpg

Mobile Education Projects

• Mobile games for financial literacy

• Mobile storytelling

• MobilED - large information repository/community via SMS/Voice

MobilED diagram

From: http://mobiled.uiah.fi/?page_id=7

Media market scale

• Hollywood(USA) - $50B today

• Bollywood(India) - $1B today

• Nollywood(Nigeria) - $.8B today, but fastest growth

• Global media & entertainment - 1 trillion in 5 years (PWC)

Nollywood in more detail

• Started by traders -- organic growth through large distribution and many small films

• Funding increasing by private equity

• Even a few web advertising companies

http://www.thisisnollywood.com/trailer2.htm

However....

• Formal education difficult to get (60k spots for 160m people)

• Existing training programs & higher education have huge demand

Case Study: Cap Digital

• Competitiveness Cluster for Ile de France media industry

• Worked with government , industry, and local media arts center to create Digital Pathways

• Out of work youth training program for media arts industry

• Training program grows in conjunction with cluster

Photo: Bay Area Video Coalition

• DiSCO: Extending Cap Digital model to SP

• E-Lounge - cultural connections

• New Collaborations?

My Projects

Conclusion

• Media training around self-expression (eg digital storytelling) in an inter-cultural context

• At minimum, increases self-esteem and digital literacy

• When well aligned, it results in job placement and creation

Thank you!

• Questions?

• Other resources

• http://mobilestorytelling.org (my website)

• http://storycenter.org (Center for Digital Storytelling)

• http://rdvp.org (Digital Vision Program)