Participatory storytelling online: The challenge of the dialog between form and content to obtain vibrant settings

Abstract

This article aims to study storytelling in cyberspace within the radical shift that virtual communication, robotics and artificial intelligence imply. Based on a theoretical methodological approach, and through a comprehensive interdisciplinary literature review, the paper reflects on the particularities of the new digital communication setting and its impact on the ideas and creation of new types of stories. We start from the hypothesis that there is no appropriate dialog among computer programmers, neuroscientists and narrative specialists who act as hermetic and self-referential fields that produce interesting but parallel knowledge. The study highlights that programmed narrative only uses one-way action-response techniques from behavioral psychology and an exclusively exemplary narratology that repeats without innovating. As a conclusion, the article emphasizes the need to construct a new theoretical framework that matches the advances and drawbacks of the anthropotechnological literature. For this, we propose to change the paradigm and apply the rules derived from the continuators of formalism and the analysts of traditional storytelling structures. The article, as an original contribution, stresses the need to create vibrant settings through a creative initiative that introduces the use of new notions such as crowdsourcing, collective intelligence or robotic psychology into participatory storytelling online. This varied set of elements enables the creation of stories that progressively enhance the involvement of users and recover their active role.