Industry blog on Narrative & Technology

The Media Centre’s blog, Morph, has morphed. It has grown into a multi-threaded blog called Morph-the media Center conversation. The threads, or tracks, have a large collection of “official” contributors and are themed as:

We Influence
Public Relations & Marketing     

We Imagine
Technology & Narrative

 

 

We Lead
Public Policy & Politics     

We Live
Behaviors, Trends, Culture

 

 

I’ll be following the Narrative stream, called: We Imagine!

 Here are some edited highlights of the intro post of We Imagine:

Welcome to We Imagine!     

Storytelling and communication always relied on technology, and for the last several thousand years, we were pretty good at developing technologies to tell stories – the mask and cothurn of the Greek theater; the amazing African costumes that often combine visual and acoustic elements; the ancient temples and gothic cathedrals; the laterna magica of Athanasius Kircher, Lumiere and Edison; and computer-based virtual-reality systems; the string phone, VOIP, plumes and punch cards. We continuously imagine and invent new storytelling technologies. The communication and presentation media obviously impact the story being told and at the same time tell a story of their own.

      

We develop a new type of narrative as we talk about the narrative, which is of course also about our identity and our memories. 

Are there true paradigm shifts in the technology we use today or are we just infatuated with the “now,” discounting the “old stuff,” and more interesting, what will be the next way to tell stories?

How will we tell stories in 2006?

Imagine…

 Contributors to this blog are:

  • Editor Florian Brody, Director of Marketing, A9.com
  • Kevin Anderson, Reporter/Producer, BBC World Service
  • Gilles Babinet, Founder, OSLight
  • Laurence Bricker, Chief Creative Officer, Popular Front Interactive
  • Di-Ann Eisnor, CEO, Platial
  • Rob Enderle, Principal Analyst, Enderle Group
  • Katie Lips, Creative Technologist, Kisky Netmedia
  • Shoba Purushothaman, CEO & Co-Founder, The News Market
  • Mitch Ratcliffe, Chief Scientist, Buzzlogic
  • Ken Sands, Online Publisher, The Spokesman-Review.com
  • Irina Slutsky, Reporter, Geekentertainment.tv
  • Andrea Spiegel, Vice President, AOL
  • Bob Stein, Director, Institute for the Future of the Book

 

The posts seem a bit new-media-centric (I’m for using all media and arts types), but nevertheless a very informed and up-to-date discussion. They emailed me to let me know I’m officially invited to contribute, which is very nice. I cannot tell, however, with the really slick emails with a personal tone, if “I” am REALLY being addressed as an individual. Either way, I’m interested.

Also, I forgot to post about their Digital Think publication which came out last year. Here is the blurb:

As Andrew says in the introduction, “Digital Think is about the art of the possible, and a nod to thinkers around the globe who see in those possibilities a variety of pathways to more enriching forms of communication.” It is an anthology of short essays by an eclectic array of digital media designers, editors, artists and producers from the fields of journalism, art, activism, games and design, who share their ideas on conceptualizing digital content.

This publication, and the sagas_net reader on Developing Interactive Content are 2 good, interesting, industry publications on the subject.

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