Digital Storytelling Viewed though a Post-process Lens: Reflections from the Fulbright-Hays 2010 China Seminar

Post-process theory asserts that writing is public, interpretive, and situated and considers the larger social and political forces that affect a writer. Writing is viewed as a cultural activity by which writers position and reposition themselves in relation to their own and others’ subjectivities, discourses, practices, and institutions. Digital storytelling shifts writing from private to public. This qualitative study investigates the process of constructing and publically sharing digital stories by teachers who participated in the Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad 2010 China Seminar. The digital stories from the China Seminar were examined using Bradley’s (1995) three-level framework for evaluating levels of reflection. Raters ranked the digital stories, focusing particularly on the evidence of insights about China and Chinese culture, indications of multiple perspectives, and suggestions of new meaning derived from the reflective process. Links to examples of narrative stories at each stage of reflection are in the paper, which uses postmodern and narrative theory to consider narrative representation as it relates to self-construction and revealing self.