Reflecting On My Experience in Digital Storytelling

As I am finishing up my courses, I can honestly say it has been the most rigorous and challenging semesters I’ve had in college. I am a Psychology and Communication Studies double major. Even though I feel more adjusted with my work and excited about the content within these majors, it has been a challenging semester with the course load. But I know that growth requires me to challenge myself consistently, which I have done this semester in Digital Storytelling.

I’ve always been interested in making videos, refining my photography skills, and learning more about the digital world. Still, I always brushed it aside, saying I would look into it later. Digital Storytelling allowed me to invest in my content creation and consumption with hands-on experiences that will help me during my remaining years at Furman and in the marketing fields.

This semester I worked and edited numerous projects, including:

• Blog Posts

• Reflection Blogs

• Camera Framing and Software Use Labs

• Interview and Storyboard Labs

• Visual Essay

• Podcast

• PSA Video about mental health

• Individual Video about COVID-19 and its effect on local boutiques

Ally Farr from Lizard Thicket Greenville was one of the main people I interviewed for my individual video project. She and her team are always working hard to give the very best to their customers.

I enhanced my learning using Adobe and working apps like Premier Pro and Photoshop for these projects. This course and these software programs helped me learn the skills for storytelling and the best writing and visual elements to convey a story well. I also was able to get diverse experience in multiple areas of content creation and consumption, and these experiences and my E-portfolio will make me stand out among future employers. Since I want to pursue a marketing career with Chanel, Dior, or another luxury brand, I must have experience creating and promoting content. I am incredibly grateful for having a whole semester expound on my creativity and abilities with Digital Storytelling.

I was able to practice using Adobe Premiere Pro for my PSA.

Throughout the course, I would interview people. Including some of my closest friends!

My individual video was one of my favorite projects that I worked on and learned so much. I learned how to create a strong story arc that kept my audience interested in the topic and influenced them to help local boutiques during a pandemic. I also learned how to marry B-roll shots and photos to the narration of the track and take different types of shots to generate the most meaningful content. This project helped me utilize all the skills and knowledge from previous labs and projects and create content that boutiques could potentially use. Specifically, with picking out the best soundbites from interviews, varying my shots, and adding elements like music to keep my audience engaged.

During the pandemic, in-store shopping at Dress Up was challenging.

Since resuming back to normal, customers are excited to try on the clothes

on the racks.

As for content consumption, I learned a lot from my classmates. Watching and critiquing their projects helped me learn:

• Strategies I could implement in my work

• Visual elements, techniques, and strategies that did or did not work well

• Tools to create a compelling story arc

Since I was able to see and explore lots of projects and pinpoint what worked well for content creation, I became a better content consumer. I learned from my own mistakes and others’ and was able to take that knowledge and refine my work.

I understood the importance of solid ethics within content creation and consumption throughout this course. Having reliable sources, examples, and research is vital when generating content. On the flip side, being skeptical of information and going back to the source helped me be a better content consumer because I could see if the evidence and storyteller were honest and reliable. A course that practically teaches me the value and importance of strong ethics in media creation and consumption puts me ahead of the game and prevents me from making careless errors in future work.

Media literacy is something I learned and strengthened every day throughout this course. The idea is to critically analyze different forms of media and implement them into how you create and use media through other platforms. As a whole, being able to analyze what sources are essential critically will be taken throughout the rest of my life. I have to be able to identify what sources are credible, and not only that but also be an active producer and consumer of media. Also, it will be vital for me to keep my eyes open for the correct media platforms and actively participate in engaging with them and learning from them.

Although this course has been one of the hardest I’ve taken at Furman, it has also given me the most growth. Dr. Sturgill was patient and helpful throughout all my projects, and her feedback made my content stronger. I want to work at a large marketing firm one day, and being able to generate meaningful content will help take the brand to a new level and reach more people. Not only that, but being able to consume content from competitors and see how my marketing agencies use different strategies will show me what methods work the best for our target audience.