Problems of expertise and scalability in self-made media

The term ‘digital storytelling’ can be used generically to describe any computer-based narrative expression, including ‘hypertext fiction’ and game narratives as well as YouTube and the like. Here however it refers only to the practice whereby ‘ordinary people’ participate in hands-on workshops using computer software to create short personal films that privilege self-expression; typically narratives of realisation of identity, memory, place and aspiration.2 Digital storytelling fills a gap between everyday cultural practice and professional media that was never adequately bridged during the broadcast era (Carpentier, 2003). Digital stories are simple but disciplined, like a sonnet or haiku, and anyone can learn how to make them. They reconfigure the producer/ consumer relationship and show how creative work by non-professional users adds value to contemporary culture (Burgess, & Hartley, 2004). A genealogy for this mode of digital storytelling (henceforth DST) has become established; it is indeed a ‘Californian export,’ as the 2007 ICA pre-conference in San Francisco aptly put it.3 However, in one important respect the form of DST in Australia, including the R&D that we do at QUT, departs from that original, as will be discussed below in the discussion of scalability and expertise