Readers, Writers, and Everything in Between: Considering Co-Creative Relationships on Digital Storytelling Platform

Abstract

This paper uses the notion of the empowered reader in hypertext to think about the role of readers and creative partners in constructing art and digital storytelling. Using the Indian digital storytelling platform 'Voices of Rural India' as a field site, this research considers the role of the fan and other facilitators of digital storytelling as being central to the production process. While there has been argument for including the work of fans as a form of labor, I argue instead for calling this a co-creative partnership, in the vein of Banks and Humphrey (2008). In doing so, I resist the urge to label all forms of production as labor and consider instead the fruits this creative relationship may bear. This paper also looks closely at the idea of volunteerism in the context of Voices of Rural India and the ways in which volunteer work can become a form of unpaid labor in the context of digital storytelling. Overall, this paper seeks to empower the practice of reading and argue for its necessity and worth in the wider infrastructure of digital storytelling and creative production, while also promoting the notion of creative partnership and shared storytelling.