Digital Storytelling

Cultural sites and museums can be highly emotional places and, regardless of age, location, or state of preservation, are seedbeds not just of knowledge, but of emotional resonance and human connection. This project examines how digital storytelling and participatory approaches can be used to encourage in-depth engagement with cultural heritage collections. It explores how co-designing and evaluating collections interpretation with diverse users and stakeholders can support emotional connection and critical reflection. It argues that these approaches can transform museum visitor experiences, facilitate interactions with other visitors, non-visitors, and staff, and widen the typical visitor profile. The research investigates both onsite and online engagement, which has been pushed to the fore during the pandemic while physical access to collections and sites has been curtailed, forcing us to re-define traditional museum visiting models. The study will draw a set of recommendations for effective digital interpretation for both researchers and cultural heritage practitioners.

Economou, M. and McConway, N. (2023) Beyond Reach: Reassessing ‘Best Practice’ for Digital Audience Engagement. In: MuseWeb 2023, Washington, D.C., USA, 3-5 April 2023

Economou, M. , Young, H. and Sosnowska, E. (2019) Evaluating emotional engagement in digital stories for interpreting the past. The case of the Hunterian Museum’s Antonine Wall EMOTIVE experiences. In: 3rd Digital Heritage International Congress, San Francisco, CA, USA, 26-30 Oct 2018, ISBN 9781728102924 (doi: 10.1109/DigitalHeritage.2018.8810043)

Economou, M. , Ruthven, I., Galani, A., Dobreva, M. and de Niet, M. (2019) Special Issue on Evaluation of Digital Cultural Resources [Guest Editors]. Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage, 12(1)

EMOTIVE Demo Event, Hunterian Museum 30 October 2019

Showcasing EMOTIVE storytelling about Romans at the Antonine Wall at European Researchers’ Night – Explorathon 2017