Digital footprints and narrative traceability/narrative footprints and digital traceability

Abstract

The stories we tell and are told, the images we see and share, the ways we communicate find new paths and come to expression in new forms of networks, other agoras (to borrow Foley’s terminology) and at a faster pace. Nonetheless, we ought to examine what the novelty of contemporary storytelling consists in when it conquers digital forms and environments. Likewise, the digital brings us new tools and possibilities of access to data – but how much have our disciplines, methods, approaches and concepts actually transformed and changed? And how much have we assessed the capacity of adaptation of our disciplines for embracing the study of what takes place online and in relation to the digital? From this vantage point, this paper gives particular attention to the footprints and the traceability of our doings and our data in order to highlight the flows, continuity and ruptures of what we do and tell. Based on examples from a variety of contexts, I illustrate how our quest for renewal, novelty and innovation is strongly anchored in, subjected to and depends upon our habits, old-fashioned ways and ability to observe the world around us. Further, I argue that in research like in storytelling, the value of vintage equals the value of novelty and originality.