Digital storytelling and the ‘problem’ of sentimentality

Abstract

‘Sentimentality’ is typically used to refer to the excessive, self-indulgent and banal use of affect to manipulate audiences into ‘tender’ emotional responses Sentimentality is also one of the most common criticisms of ‘digital storytelling’, a co-creative media practice in which ‘ordinary’ people are taught to create short, usually autobiographical ‘digital stories’. Indeed, scholars and practitioners alike have noted the frequent reception of digital storytelling as ‘too sentimental’, ‘sentimental navel-gazing’ and ‘sentimental tripe’ This article uses Stories of Service – an American programme that facilitates the creation of war veterans’ digital stories – as a case study to investigate such criticisms, finding that not only does the programme make extensive use of the tropes and conventions of sentimentality but also that its ‘distinctive media logic’ is actually constitutive of the very sentimentality with which the practice is so frequently charged.