Participatory storytelling and the new folklore of the digital age

Abstract

Drawing on a century's worth of folklore studies, my examination of variability in digital stories challenges the notion of text as a fixed object of study, and looks at ways that contemporary creators seek to facilitate variations on their own stories. My look at performance suggests that each digital storytelling event is a unique co-cooperation between teller and audience, the story being the product of the tensions and interactions taking place during that event. My study of collectivity identifies the role of communities in guiding the creation, meaning, reception and distribution of digital stories over time, and how those stories serve to guide the creation of those communities in turn. Finally, I focus on a series of stories surrounding a horror character called Slender Man to demonstrate the nature of digital folklore, tracing issues of variation, distribution, interactivity, mediation, community formation, and ownership as they developed across a specific storytelling effort.