Page 175 [175]
174] Digital Media and Storytelling in Higher Education
loneliness all appeared in their stories, highlighting the diseases complete
impact on every aspect of their lives. The participants then looked for points
of support and ways to deal with the situation: some suggested support
organizations, while others mentioned the acceptance of family and partners.
The method helped the individuals to move away from a negative self-identity,
improve their self-esteem and control their negative emotions. Through the
formulation of goals and perspectives, the group members became aware of
their own agency, which was extended to individual and later social acts (Willis
et al., 2014). In the case of HIV-positive children in Tanzania, a Story Circle
was followed by the co-creation of hypothetical future-oriented texts that
were acted out and recorded by the children. In an attempt to interpret their
stigmatized and marginalized situation from a more optimistic perspective,
the children formulated plans for their own futures (Duveskog et al., 2012).
When dealing with sensitive issues, care should be taken as it is possible
that in the process of processing painful memories, individuals may be re¬
traumatized or their story may traumatize another group member. Considering
these cases, such workshops should not be run without a psychologist to ensure
its therapeutic effect. When touching on sensitive topics, the facilitator should
make the participants aware that they can stop the process at any time, that
they do not have to tell a story just because others find it exciting, that the
finished story will not be published without their consent, and that they do
not have to fear the judgement of others. In addition, the facilitator should
ask the workshop participants to keep the conversations confidential and
not to reveal anything to others outside the group. The facilitator should
ask the clients if they are able to work with images related to their trauma; if
not, facilitators can communicate drawings or symbols can be used instead
of photos (Ward & Bullivant, 2017).
3.3 Helping Professionals’ Training
There have been numerous experiments and creative projects in which
helping professionals have used DST to make a difference for their clients
and in the wider social context. The Silver Stories program, a two-year
collaboration between six countries, brought together a group of elderly
individuals to create digital stories. Humanistic gerontology is a person¬
centered interdisciplinary field that brings together interpretive approaches
from psychology, anthropology, and sociology to develop a new approach
to the issue of caring for people with dementia. The aim of the program
was to explore the lives and experiences of older people through stories.
In the process, the elderly participants were asked to create stories through
constructing contexts and revisiting their relationships. The digital stories
they produced were widely shared: first among themselves and then within
their families. Finally, the videos were introduced into the higher education