Therapy, Democracy and the Creative Practice of Digital Storytelling

Thumim returns to the assumption prevalent in much theoretical scholarship in which the practice of Digital Storytelling (DS) is understood as most valuable if it can be understood as functioning to democratise media spaces. Therapeutic outcomes are sometimes seen as at best better than nothing and at worst reactionary - often understood as serving individual self-improvement in opposition to a more widely conceived social good. Thumim analyses practices featured in Dunford/Jenkins (2017), Digital Storytelling Form and Content through this lens and concludes that contemporary DS practices are much more than either democratic or therapeutic. She adds the concept of creativity to the mix and argues the essays in this collection demonstrate how the three combine in a unique productive tension within Digital Storytelling.