Let Me Tell You a Story (planning it out) WORK IN PROGRESS

So the presentation title is "Let Me Tell You a Story: The Function of Digital Narratives as Oral Narratives in Once Upon a Time and Grimm.

A quick search on recent scholarship about digital narratives will yield results for digital storytelling in the classroom, the digital narratives of video games, and hypertexts. However, one gap that exists within this scholarship is an analysis of how the digital narratives can be part of a cycle that influences other types of narratives, that in turn cycle back around to influence the digital narrative. A perfect example are the  official web pages for television shows- how do they influence and affect the narrative of the show itself? How do the stories presented on these pages change how the audience views the narrative of the story? This paper will examine how the digital narratives of the webpages for Once Upon a Time  and Grimm function: how the use of interactive Facebook feeds, blogs, and interactive web pages on these show sites create a community out of the audience, how these digital narratives influence the audience, and how audience input and contribution to these digital narratives influences the narrative of the television shows. I will argue that this interaction between the narrative of the television show, the digital narrative of the webpage, and the audience forms a new oral narrative that functions in similar ways to the original transmission of fairy tales and folktales. 

Intro: 
What digital narratives are commonly defined as
Video game narratives
Fan Communities (usually focused on fan fiction)

• common language/knowledge
• forms bonds even in a short time due to "short hand" of the community (see above)

Gap- examining the narratives of tv show webpages
Argument- how digital narratives created by the webpages of television shows influences the original narrative, and what this signifies.

Evolution of Narrative:
How oral narratives began: Once upon a time, storytellers sat around fires and passed on tales
The transmission was back and forth 

Storyteller <------> Audience

 Then we began to write these tales down and the transmission became a little different

Storyteller/Author ----------> Audience 

Audiences could respond to the storyteller/author through letters but there was enough of a delay that the influence of the audience on the storyteller/author can be assumed to be marginal.

Now that there is a "matrix" of material that creates a narrative (Brooker), it all looks more like this. The transmission loops back and over itself

The audience can now respond in "real time" to the story, and the storyteller/author can get instant feedback on the story and alter it accordingly.

Argument:
Digital narratives (webpages) can influence the source material (television/movie/comic)
The transmission loop, the matrix is the closest approximation we have to oral narratives

Potential:
Media Studies
Pop culture
Digital narratives
Folklore