Future of storytelling trends

The following text about trends is taken from the introductory chapter of our book Future of storytelling:
Below are eight trends that we have identified in the course and that we believe are of importance for the Future of Storytelling and Storytelling of the Future. Each trend is important for at least a few groups, and sometimes for many project groups.

VIRTUAL REALITY, AUGMENTED REALITY AND 360^o VIDEO STORYTELLING

In the future, stories will be told in a way that involves the audience to a higher degree. This can be done by using technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality and 360^o video storytelling and these technologies will be simple to use and easily accessible. Utilizing these technologies to tell stories, the audience will to higher extend than today “experience” content such as sports events, concerts or in-depth news reporting.

BIG DATA AND DATA JOURNALISM

Very large amounts of collected data (“big data”) will aid storytelling in the future. The amount of data that is collected about virtually everything in society is growing exponentially each year. The challenge is to present stories based on this information in new and compelling ways or to develop and explore “big data storytelling” – a genre that hardly exist today.

MOBILE, AUDIO AND VIDEO

An increasing part of storytelling in the future will be told via mobile devices, and preferably by using video and audio. This move towards increased mobile, video and audio contents means that the proportion of text-based, written information is expected to decrease in the future compared to audio and video.

INTERACTIVITY

Storytelling in the future will preferably be done by using interactive tools. This means that the consumer prefers to interact with the story or the storyteller in various ways, for example through computer games or by exploring and interacting with different kinds of interactive stories. It might also be the case that the loop between the storyteller (journalist) and the reader (viewer, listener, gamer, consumer etc.) will become tighter.

SPREADABILITY AND CO-CREATION IN SOCIAL MEDIA

Stories will more easily be spread “laterally” among readers, users or consumers in the future and social media will play an important role in this process. With the proliferation of smartphones (cameras), users will also become more involved in the co-creation of content and eye-witness reporting is one example of this trend.

FILTER BUBBLES, PERSONALIZED STORYTELLING AND POINT OF VIEW

People will to a higher degree consume media content that is adapted and filtered to fit their particular interests. Finding stories that to a higher extent corresponds to my particular interests and points of view as well as a community of others who share my opinions can be perceived as both empowering and liberating. The downside is that being enclosed in such “filter bubbles” and “echo chambers” will make it more difficult to understand others’ sometimes slightly and at other times radically different perspectives. It might also mean that we will miss out on broader perspectives of certain issues, on topics that that we don’t know we are interested in and in topics that we should be interested in, for example “boring”, uncomfortable or difficult issues that are of societal importance.

HUMAN SENSES

The human senses will be used in the future to a higher degree when it comes to conveying stories and media content. New technologies will be presented that enhance our human senses in different ways.

SHORTER ATTENTION SPAN

Peoples’ attention span has decreased and will continue to get even shorter in the future. Most viewers, listeners and readers will have little patience for long news stories and media content that demands a heavy up-front investment in terms of time and attention. This will have serious implications for storytelling in terms of what kinds of stories can and will be told in the future and will spur the development of new genres of simplifying and telling stories succinctly. It might also mean that it will be hard to tell stories that are inherently complex (for example the background to a conflict) unless you “lure” or entice people to engage in long, time-consuming stories

Mid-crit feedback

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Based on the mid-crit 10 days ago and in preparation for the final presentation next month, here is some feedback - general thoughts and comments based on our notes - that will hopefully useful for many/all groups and that you might want to take into consideration.

- We have said that you should aim for a date that is 10-20 years in the future (2025-2035). We have used that range for more than 10 years in the course but since few/no groups are aiming for the far future, we are considering shortening the time frame to 5-15 years in the future instead (2020-2030). Do you have any opinions about that? If so, leave a comment below.
- Remember that this year's theme is "storytelling". We believe that every project will become better if you anchor your vision/concept to, and visualise it through the telling of a good, powerful (news) story. That's the way the journalists themselves work as storytellers.
- Remember your "journalist friends" from the Montgomery week. Even if you don't cooperate with them now, they know some about your projects and might agree to listen to and bounce ideas with you. By all means reach out to them and ask to pitch/discuss your current project with them.
- Remember the guest lectures in terms of lessons, sources, theories, methods.
- Introduce, define and use key technical terms carefully in your projects and use these terms consistently instead of switching between related (perhaps undefined) terms.
- Remember the human aspects of the sociotechnical loop - try not to disappear too deeply into the technical solutions if that leads to loosing track of the people who will live in the future and use your systems/services. A set of technological developments is not a story in itself, or, at least it isn't a very engaging story. You have to imagine a future scenario that is underpinned by those technical developments and that becomes more than those technical solutions.
- This is an exercise in design fiction. An interesting aspect that you might include in your projects is "the history of the future" - what happened that lead up to the scenario that your group describes? What can explain how that future came about? You are free to describe fictive events or developments that "happened" in 2018 and 2023 - if that helps make your vision/concept more concrete and more credible.
- Get to the point quickly when you present. You will have 10 minutes to present your project and the audience should have a clear understanding of what the problem is that your group has worked within, say, two minutes.
- Get instant credibility by quickly referring to (large) companies who already today do X and Y (from which your solution follows). This is a shortcut and it increases the perceived credibility and relevance of your solution.
- Some general suggestions that could be useful: Use concrete examples. Find/tell a powerful story. Show something concrete. Be pedagogical. Fake convincingly. Play different roles on the stage (not just students presenting a project but, for example, business consultants selling a solution to a customer, ordinary users of your future service etc.).
- Some groups used cartoons instead of movies. That is a design representation that can be both simpler and more powerful than a movie with high production values.

Good luck with your projects!

Daniel & Malin

Grading - criteria for judging project groups' performance

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You should at this point take an interest in the criteria we will use for judging and grading your projects. This blog post will tell you what we are looking for. You can use the criteria below as a checklist of sorts.

This might also be a very good point in time to have a look at the course PM again since there is information about examination etc there (available in Bilda).

Please note that the course formally consists of two parts:
- LIT1 (3 credits, pass/fail) - based on individual performance primarily during the start-up phase, BUT, don't forget that you will need to hand in a second essay at the very end of the course in order to get your grade reported (instructions will follow later).
- PRO1 (7 credits, A-E) - project work, see further below.

According to the course PM, each group SHALL at the end of the course:

- write a text/book chapter

- develop a design representation - "gestaltning" in Swedish (the form most often chosen is a short movie, but other forms are also possible).
- present you project at the final presentation (Dec 17)

Some of the criteria below are more relevant to the text, some to the design representation and some to the final presentation. Do also note that not just the results (see above) of your work will be judged, but also the process - "much like a bachelor's or a master's thesis" (course PM).

Criteria 1 - Process. Running work that you have done since you were divided into groups and starting with the project plan and finishing with your last weekly status report on Friday next week.

Criteria 2 - High quality text. The text (book chapter) should be correct and easy to read (worst-case scenario: a text that requires a lot of effort to be understood). The text should furthermore have a well-developed line of reasoning and analyze, reflect and argue for whatever it is you want to say (and it's a much better to say a few things clearly than to raise too many different issues that point in different directions). The text should be coherent and with no internal contradictions. To explain and exemplify is fine. To identify, categorize, differentiate, contrast, combine, modify, conclude (etc.) is better.

Criteria 3 - Creativity. Your project (your Big Idea) will hopefully have a lot of "innovative potential" ("idéhöjd"). To what extent is the results of your work innovative, original and perhaps surprising? Are you onto something interesting and have worked in a creative way to "solving" the problem/challenge of your choice? Does your solution meet real needs? Does the underlying idea raise the pulse?

Criteria 4 - Grounding. To what extent are the project group's results credible? Are your solutions backed up and strengthened by literature you relate to, empirical material you have collected or own experiences that are relevant?

Criteria 5 - Professional design representation. Your design representation (most often a film but other forms are also possible) should be characterized by a high level of professionalism and craftsmanship. Does you design representation communicate the concept (your Big Idea) well?

Criteria 6 - Professional presentation. Your presentation should be characterized by a high level of professionalism; you have to be able to clearly communicate your message (your Big Idea) to the audience. Was the presentation well structured, was it fun and did the presenter(s) do a good job? You should also be able to provide good answers to potential questions you get from the jury.

Criteria 7 - Credibility. How easy is it to understand your solution? Are your conclusions/solution believable and convincing? NOTE: your conclusions/solution doesn't have to be probable or even desirable, but it has to be believable!

Criteria 8 - Coherence. Does the text, the design representation and the presentation cohere and interlink? Do they support each other (or do they instead pull in different directions)? Can the results be regarded as a well-integrated whole where the sum is more than the sum of the parts?


Good luck!

/Malin & Daniel
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Send in a project summary to the website!

The executive group kindly asks each project group to send them a summary (50 words) of their projects. With each summary they also need 3-5 keywords.

The deadline is Wednesday, Nov 11 at midnight, and the summary should be submitted via the following link:

https://goo.gl/YtsyN4 

Thank you!

Mid-crit schedule

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- The mid-crit will be held in lecture hall V3 between 09.00-17.15. We will have three outside guest critics - please impress them by being on time!

- Each group has 25 minutes for their presentation + questions and discussion. Please use no more than 10 minutes for your presentation so that there is plenty of time left for discussions.
- There are only five groups in the morning session and eight groups in the afternoon session. No group wanted to switch to the morning session so the afternoon session will be one hour longer.

- You should attend all the presentations in your session. Feel free to ask questions for clarifications or pose questions to other groups!

Here is the schedule for the mid-crit presentation:

Session 1

• 09.00-09.15 Introduction
• 09.15-09.40 Future of Advertisement
• 09.40-10.05 Moving images
• 10.05-10.30 Point of View
• 10.30-10.45 BREAK
• 10.45-11.10 Eyewitness 
• 11.10-11.35 Virtual Reality
• 11.35-11.45 Wrap-up/concluding words (teachers, jury)

• 11.45-13.00 LUNCH

Session 2

• 13.15-13.30 Introduction
• 13.30-13.55 Big data
• 13.55-14.20 Personalized
• 14.20-14.45 Computer games
• 14.45-15.10 Audio
• 15.10-15.25 BREAK
• 15.25-15.50 Interactive
• 15.50-16.15 Human senses
• 16.15-16.40 Attention span
• 16.40-17.05 Cross-cultural
• 17.05-17.15 Wrap-up/concluding words (teacher jury)

If you have any questions about the schedule or other practical aspects around the Friday mid-crit event, please post them as a comment to this blog post!

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Please register this week for the News Impact Summit, Nov 24

As mentioned at the recent coordination meeting, we have been invited to speak at a conference, organized by the European Journalism Centre and Google News lab, on November 24, in Stockholm (Odenplan).

The topic for our speech is the collaboration between KTH, JMK and SvD in this course. Anna Careborg, Matilda E. Hanson and I will talk about the challenges and benefits of our recent collaboration, and consequences for the media industry.

This is a full day conference, and the rest of the day a number of (other) prominent speakers are talking, among others:
– Louise Roug, Global News Editor, Mashable
– Susan Mcgregor, Assistant Director, The Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, N.Y.
– Ove Joanson, Chairman, European Journalism Centre
– Chris Moran, Digital Audience Editor, The Guardian UK
– Fredrik Laurin, Special Project Editor, Sveriges Radio (Radio Sweden)
– Raphael Satter, Journalist, The Associated Press
– Marina Petrillo, Reported.ly, First Look Media
– Matt Cooke, European Lead, The Google News Lab
– Jonas Nordling, Chairman, The Swedish Union of Journalists

You can read more about the conference here.

The conference organizers want to see as many of you there as possible, and I have promised to fill at least 10 seats for the whole day. They have also asked me to send them the names of the students from KTH, which means that you need to e-mail me if you like to go, and I will forward your names to the organizers.

Please do this no later than November 6, by e-mailing: picha@kth.se
Thank you very much in advance.

I know this is a full day event, but I think it might be worth it if you are interested in the media business and want to get some good insights and valuable contacts.

Instructions for the weekly status report

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Each group should post a weekly status report on the course companion blog. Every course participant has gotten an invitation to post/contribute to the blog.

Here are the instructions for the weekly status report.

Deadline: Please submit your weekly status report every Friday at noon with the exception of this Friday (Nov 6, mid-crit presentations). The noon deadline will allow us to the chance to provide you with feedback the same day/before the weekend. 

Content of each weekly report:

• Group name. 
• What we have done. What you (your group) have done during the previous week (since the previous weekly report)
• What we will do. What you will do next (next step(s) in your project)
• Challenges encountered. Either challenges within the group or in relation to you plans and "external" entities. 
• Changes in the project. "Evolution"/change of direction of your project (optional). If you have altered or changed the direction of your project (compared to the project plan or to previous status report) - please tell us what and why.
• Resources. We encourage you to also append other materials, for example a photo of your work process, a drawing/diagram you have created or a link to some excellent resource you have encountered (a text or a video for example). 
• Other. Whatever you feel is important or necessary to add to the status report. 

Comment: As stated before, it is not just the final results but also the process that is important in the course. Please see the weekly status reports not only as us (teachers) examining you (students), but as your opportunity to tell us (and impress us with) what you have done lately in your project group. You can also use it as a backchannel to point out obstacles and problems you have encountered.

If you encounter problems that hinder you to progress in your work as a group, do not hesitate to get in touch with Malin and Daniel so that we can set up a meeting and discuss these issues!

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