MFC5572 - Digital Narratives

Objectives:

On successful completion of the module, students will be able to:

critically analyse digital narrative structures and interactive storytelling platforms;

contribute to online collaborative narratives and create story structures that allow for author and audience co-creation;

apply concepts of interactive design to their own original work to create digital narratives requiring varying levels of audience participation;

create a digital narrative, with interactive or branching structures, that demonstrates a critical awareness of contemporary or potential future developments in the sector.

Content:

This module provides instruction and analysis of different types and methods of creating and interacting with digital narratives. Students will be introduced to classic hypermedia texts in the context of technological development. This module seeks to understand the strengths and weaknesses of different digital narrative formats, their publishing platforms and their application for storytelling in both fiction and non-fiction forms. Students will participate in, and critically assess, co-creation of digital narratives and understand the role of the writer in transmedia productions and how this relates to game-based narratives and interactive scenario design.

Learning and Teaching Information:

Lectures will introduce theories, concepts and examples with occasional play-throughs. The teaching will include the development of a co-created online environment to capture and comment on digital narratives. Workshops are expected to be both physical and virtual.

Lectures
Contact hours 24
Intended Group size 24

Workshops
Contact hours 24
Intended Group siize 24

Individual consultancy
Contact hours 24

Guided independent study
Hours 128

The assessment will be based on the functionality of the written narrative and how it makes use of, and is suited to, the digital space it occupies and the additional media it uses.

Students permitted to take a half-module for the award of 10 credits will be assessed on the basis of the assessment mode relevant to the semester of study and of a length negotiated with the module co-ordinator.

Assessment:

001 Collaborative writing; 1,000 words; end of semester 1 25%
002 Interactive narrative; 3,000 words; end of semester 2 75%
200 Collaborative writing; 1,000 words; end of semester 1 100%
201 Interactive narrative; 3,000 words; end of semester 2 100%

Fact File

Module Coordinator - Liz Cable
Level - 5
Credit Value - 20
Pre-Requisites - NONE
Semester(s) Offered - 5YL

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