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82] Digital Media and Storytelling in Higher Education
age Stories, Discovery Stories, and Dream Stories); (2) Representations of life
events (Adventure Stories and; Accomplishment Stories); (3) Local Stories;
and (4) Professional Stories (Lanszki, 2016a).
In a digital story, the personal relationship of the author with his narrative
is well delineated; and Lambert (2002/2013) represents this relationship with
concentric circles as seen below (Figure 8).
My Story
Our Story
Their Story
Figure 8. Approaches to Content in Digital Stories (Lambert, 2002/2013, p. 43)
The circles above show how close the narrator’s relationship is to his or her
own narrative. The subjective relationship between the narrator and the
subject of the narrative is strongest at the center of the circle and becomes
more objective as the circles move out. In the innermost circle is the Me Story,
the narrator’s identity story in which the author reveals the individual life
story that most defines his or her personality. The next band is My Story, in
which the narrator relays information about important objects, people, and
circumstances in his or her environment. In the third circle, the narrator
reflects on the collective cultural, historical and social experiences of a
community in Our Story narratives, and on other communities in Their Stories
narratives. Outside these circles are No Stories, in which there is no personal
relationship between the subject of the narrative and the narrator (Lambert,
2002/2013). Examples of such stories are educational digital stories in which
students create a digital story about a content subject. An interesting mix of
these categories can be found in digital stories from students that are both
informative and combine the narrator’s personal experiences about the topic.
A similar grouping of digital stories can also be found in Robin (2006), who
distinguishes the thematic categories of (1) personal narratives; (2) historical
documentaries; and (3) informative, instructive materials (Lanszki, 2017).