Content, progress and pedagogy of the module

Objectives

The course introduces state of the art frameworks, concepts and techniques in order to enable students to design, implement and evaluate Interactive Digital Narrative products that involve the use of storytelling in the latest emerging technological platforms. It presents key concepts and issues from the Interactive Digital Narrative and Storytelling fields, such as:

• Design trade-offs between different forms of narrative immersion (spatial, temporal, emotional, epistemic) and the different forms of interactivity (both, from the technological and from the narrative points of view).
• Trades-off between user agency and authorial control over the narrative’s coherence.
• How to include the user in the narration process (i.e.: perspective taking, and points of view technologies)
• How to harmonize the interactivity of the narrative with different technological affordances (e.g. haptic devices, tracking technologies, avatars and artificial agents, embodied interaction, etc.). 
• Interactive narratives as rhetorical devices (for persuasive communication). 
• How to investigate user experience in narrative-based immersive and interactive applications (exploring topics such as immersion, engagement, narrative cognition, suspensión of disbelief, believability, and dramatic engagement, for instance). 
• Evolving and emerging paradigms in Digital Interactive Narratives such as Transmedia Storytelling, Environmental Storytelling, IDNs for representing complexity and big data, Extended Realities for IDNs, Adaptive Narratives, Storyworld construction, and Location-based technology for IDNs.
• The dimensions of ethics and social responsibility in interactive and immersive narrative technology.

Students get the chance to work with projects and cases from different domains of applications: games and serious games, edutainment, interactive storytelling, virtual and augmented reality, interactive documentaries, museum science, cultural experiences, performing arts, social media, healthcare apps, immersive journalism, and art installations.

Learning objectives

Knowledge

Students who complete the module will obtain:

• knowledge about state of the art frameworks and methodologies for Interactive Digital Narratives (IDN) and immersive storytelling
• understanding of the design implications of narrative structures in different applications of immersive and interactive media
• knowledge about new emerging and innovative technological platforms and paradigms for Interactive Digital Narratives 
• understanding about the socio-cultural context and the ethical implications of interactive and immersive narratives in digital culture

Skills

Students who complete the module will be able to: 

• apply established and novel concepts and methods for designing interactive narratives in interactive and immersive media
• synthesize rhetorical strategies with aesthetic and design choices for IDNs in specific domains of application 
• choose and implement appropriate concepts and frameworks for evaluating user-experience in interactive digital narratives

Competences

Students who complete the module will be able to:

• effectively monitor and interpret current and future trends in technological convergence in order to engage in innovative interactive narrative design
• develop novel concepts and frameworks for applying interactive digital narratives in different cultural and commercial domains
• reflect on, and consider the ethical implications and the social responsibility aspects of using narratives and rhetorical devices in interactive and immersive systems 

Type of instruction

Refer to the overview of instruction types listed in § 17.

Exam

Prerequisite for enrollment for the exam

• To be eligible to take the exam, the student must timely have handed in any mandatory assignments

Exams