Virtual Digital Storytelling: Building Solidarity in Transnational Participatory Research

Abstract

Digital storytelling creates short videos that tell a story by combining images and/or video footage with an audio narrative, usually set to background music. In participatory research, they enable participants to tell their own stories and generate a rich form of multimodal data that can be shared both personally and through knowledge mobilization. In this article, we describe our use of virtual digital storytelling, which brought together 12 youth participants ages 18–25 from 11 different countries in Africa and Asia to create and share digital stories about their activism for gender transformative education. We used Microsoft Teams to hold two focus group discussions with three groups of 3–5 participants and connect individually with participants to create their digital stories. The project was designed and implemented in partnership with Transform Education, a global youth-led feminist activism coalition. We describe significant opportunities related to fostering transnational connections and providing participants with ownership and control of the stories. We also highlight logistical and ethical challenges surrounding internet connectivity, trauma disclosures, and use of images in research and provide recommendations for navigating them. Ultimately, we advocate for virtual digital storytelling as a viable means of engaging geographically disparate participants in meaningful participatory art-based research.

The value of incorporating youth perspectives into advocacy, policy, and programming is increasingly recognized (Horgan & Kennan, 2021), including in education (Martinez et al., 2020) and gender justice work (Coe, 2015). Yet, in practice, the involvement of young people often lacks meaningful opportunities for them to influence decision-making, particularly on a global stage where power discrepancies such as age and social status are amplified by geopolitical status that privilege stakeholders from countries with more economic and political influence (Bent, 2020; Shore & Grønne, 2020). Those power dynamics appear to be challenged within the movement to advance gender transformative education through the involvement and leadership of Transform Education, a transnational youth-led feminist network bringing together hundreds of youth activists and youth-led advocacy organizations from around the world, mostly from the Global South. It is hosted by the United Nations Girls Education Initiative (UNGEI) and uses “a method of participatory engagement through advocacy, capacity strengthening and solidarity growing… grounded in inclusive feminist practices to encourage continuous impact towards our collective mission” of achieving gender equality in and through education (Burnett & Harris-Harb, 2023, p. 3). They identify as the only feminist youth-led coalition in the education sector and have been listed as a partner on influential initiatives such as the (2021) policy brief on Gender Transformative Education, co-authored by Transform Education with UNICEF, UNGEI, and Plan International. While there are examples whereby young feminists are meaningfully involved in operating organizations (Coe, 2015), leading their own activism networks (Mackay, 2011), and supported by established activists and scholars to meaningfully contribute to policymaking at local, national, and international levels (Bent, 2020; Haffejee et al., 2020), the positioning of a youth-led network as a major stakeholder is rare. Our research used a digital storytelling methodology to understand the experiences of youth activists in the Transform Education network as they advocate for gender transformative education both globally and within their national and local contexts. The project, developed in collaboration with Transform Education, also sought to identify recommendations for how to support youth activists in advancing their advocacy goals.

As the project studied youth experiences in relation to meaningful participation in international policymaking, we chose to use a participatory approach that emphasized participants’ voice using a storytelling narrative. A challenge, however, was that our 12 participants were located in 11 different countries. We lacked the budget to bring participants from across Asia and Africa to a central location for a research workshop, meaning our data collection had to be virtual. We did not want to ask participants to spend many hours each day in online meetings and respected that they were participating alongside other commitments to work, school, and activism. We wanted the flexibility to work individually with participants to tell the stories they wanted to, on their schedule. The following describes our adaptation of the digital storytelling method within transnational research involving virtual synchronous and asynchronous data collection. We undertook open-ended focus group discussions (FGDs) and one-on-one conversations to craft digital stories describing youth experiences of activism for gender transformative education. We identify challenges and limitations of the approach, but ultimately strongly recommend virtual digital storytelling as a means of leveraging participant perspectives, particularly when participants and researchers are not geographically co-located.

Background

Participatory research is a collaboration in which participants work with the researcher(s) to inform multiple stages of the research process. It should study and address a given concern of priority to the participants, working toward social transformation (Bergold & Thomas, 2012). The researcher’s role is to support participants to navigate the research process and exercise their voice through research (Woodgate et al., 2020), constituting a shift in objectives and power relations that enables participants to be co-producers of knowledge related to shared concerns (Cahill, 2007). Participatory visual methods (PVM) that incorporate art or other visual processes of meaning making effectively engage participants and give marginalized populations a platform to share their concerns (Mitchell et al., 2017); they are considered valuable when working with participants with multiple vulnerabilities addressing violence in the Global South (Nguyen et al., 2021). The PVM research products effectively engage multiple audiences because of the use of images as a powerful means of capturing attention (Mitchell et al., 2017). Youth have often been at the forefront of social change, leading or meaningfully contributing to social movements (Ginwright & James, 2002). Involving young people in participatory research enables them to “analyze and transform their own lives and communities,” positioning them as social actors and enhancing their capacity for knowledge production (Cahill, 2007, p. 298).

Digital storytelling emerged alongside other participatory digital methods due to the higher availability of digital technologies and changing audiences (Gubrium et al., 2016). Digital storytelling is a method of creating personal, short, autobiographical videos through a workshop-based approach (Burgess, 2006). During these workshops, participants are involved in conversations about the subject of inquiry and learn to make autobiographical video compilations of pictures, music, video, voiceover and text to produce engaging narratives of the lived experience of the participants (Gubrium, 2009). The digital stories can be screened online (Burgess, 2006) or distributed through various media, depending upon the project’s objective (Gubrium et al., 2014).

Solórzano and Yosso (2002) define ‘majoritarian stories’ as popular stories that reflect privileged perspectives. Majoritarian stories are so ingrained as part of popular culture they are rarely questioned. Solórzano and Yosso suggest counter-storytelling as an alternative that amplify the voices of those whose stories are neglected by the majority. Counter-storytelling can be used as an advocacy tool to support resistance, aligning with Burgess, (2006) explanation of digital stories as a means of enabling stories of people whose voices are not part of the dominant popular culture to be told. They have been observed to be a particularly potent means of supporting young people to express themselves through an engaging and creative medium (Hull & Katz, 2006). The claims of social transformation achieved in digital storytelling research, however, are not always supported by the youth participants involved (Alexandra, 2008). Digital storytelling is not an inherently empowering process for youth participants; principles of ethical participatory research, such as meaningful consent, ownership, and control, must be thoughtfully considered. As Woodgate et al. (2020) observe, researchers do not ‘give youth a voice.’ Youth already have a voice and participatory researchers can create spaces for them to speak into.

This article joins a robust and growing literature on virtual data collection using digital platforms such as Teams, Zoom, Skype, and Facetime, collectively referred to as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). VoIP technology has been appreciated by researchers and participants for its convenience, efficiency, relative simplicity, affordability, and flexibility (Archibald et al., 2019). The convenience of participation can lead to lower participant dropout rates (Frey & Bloch, 2023). It is considered advantageous in conducting research internationally and with some marginalized populations, yet accessibility is limited by needing access to a digital device and internet connection (Keen et al., 2022). Principal challenges include difficulty joining calls, frustration with technological issues that arise, and poor call quality affected by unreliable internet connection (Archibald et al., 2019). Some researchers report being able to achieve equal or even greater rapport as compared to face-to-face focus groups (Tuttas, 2015). Recognizing that relationality between researcher and participants and among participants can be reduced in online focus groups, participants often compensate by using other mechanisms afforded through the technology, such as emojis. Another advantage is that the use of VoIP creates opportunities for participants to compose and edit their thoughts and communicate them in writing through the chat box in addition to participating verbally (Frey & Bloch, 2023).

Our Process

Our methodology built on the description of digital storytelling outlined in Rouhani’s (2019) article studying mother’s associations in Benin. Rouhani conducted two workshops using the following steps, each occurring in a half-day workshop over the course of a week: (1) introduce participants to concept of digital storytelling with examples, followed by discussion of visual ethics and initial brainstorming regarding the stories the participants may want to tell; (2) a story circle, in which each participant had 15 minutes to tell their story to the group, which a Research Assistant (RA) transcribed verbatim, becoming the basis of the digital story script; (3) the research team worked with participants to edit their script and then provided brief training to participants on photography, before inviting them to take pictures in their community and creating storyboards that connected the photos to the script; (4) recorded each participant’s voice over; (5) screened the digital stories with the mother’s association followed by group dialogue regarding analysis of the themes generated in the stories, images that strongly resonated, and key issues the participants wanted to highlight.

Like Rouhani (2019), Catherine, the lead researcher in our team, took a digital storytelling course with StoryCenter and then trained RAs Meenal and Valerie on making digital stories. Each team member created our own digital story. Recruitment took place through the Transform Education network, who was a partner on the project and influenced project design and knowledge dissemination. An initial announcement regarding the research project was made at the FemNet4GTE event hosted by UNGEI in November 2023, where Catherine and Transform Education network co-coordinators met with potential participants to share information and answer questions about the project. A formal recruitment email was sent to all Transform Education activists who had been invited to the FemNet4GTE, including those who were unable to attend. A total of 12 participants joined, originating from 11 countries, with multiple participants travelling across borders throughout data collection. The research team was based in Canada. Catherine previously worked in international development and coordinated youth activism to influence policymaking with a bilateral donor and an international NGO. Meenal was a teacher education student who had recently moved to Canada from India after working for an education NGO. Valerie is an undergraduate student studying forensic science who was engaged in activism for gender equity herself as a teenager in Canada. Participants were divided into three groups based on their availability. Data collection unfolded in three steps—opening focus group, individual digital storytelling, screening and closing focus group—that took place within each group between November 2023 and February 2024, all on Teams.

Opening Focus Group: Initial Activism Stories

We began with an opening FGD that involved introductions to the participants and researchers and to the concept of digital storytelling. We went over the consent protocol and outlined key ethical considerations for both the focus group and digital storytelling process, emphasizing the ability for participants to choose the degree to which they would be identifiable in their digital story and the project more broadly. We also stressed that they did not have to tell any part of their story that they did not want known, encouraging them to think carefully about the choice to share stories that were personally traumatic or critical of colleagues or organizations, as these presented higher risks to the participants later on. We told participants they would have the option to have their digital story made public through the project but that they could choose not to share it publicly or to exclude it from the research project all together; ultimately, the story would belong to them.

We showed examples of digital stories, including those produced by the research team, before shifting to an open-ended FGD that began by asking each participant to tell how their activism journey began. Catherine asked follow up questions and, due to their open-ended nature, each focus group went in a different direction based on the participants’ stories. FGDs were recorded using Teams and Teams-generated transcripts were edited for accuracy by Meenal and Valerie, one of whom joined almost every FGD. During the focus groups, each team member kept our cameras on to show that we were listening to the activism journeys of the participants and to express empathy while they shared their stories. Most participants turned their cameras off, particularly while they were not talking. After editing the transcript from the first FGDs, we realized that the recording did not capture the emoji and chat use that participants were engaging with during the FGD. In subsequent focus groups, RAs tracked the emoji reactions and messages in the chat in their notes taken during the calls, including the exact time they were made, so it was easier to subsequently insert in the transcript.

Crafting the Digital Stories

The next step was working one-on-one with each participant to craft their digital story within the following phases: creation and refinement of a script, selection of accompanying images or videos, putting them together, and adding music, transitions, and other elements that varied based on the participants’ preferences (e.g., subtitles were used in three). We used the WeVideo online platform to create, edit, and store the digital stories. Catherine worked individually with each participant and, once all the images, videos, and audio were in place, was supported by Meenal and Valerie to edit the transitions and add photo credits. In many cases, two versions of the digital stories were created: one for the participant’s private use and a public version that removed images that we could not acquire copyright access for or because they included identifiable figures, in accordance with the REB-approved ethical protocol. The public versions were shared through a knowledge dissemination plan developed with Transform Education, culminating in a webinar in which seven participants presented the research findings to stakeholders from scholarly and international education communities.

The digital storytelling process varied greatly based on the preferences of individual participants, but the key steps of digital storytelling creation involved (1) creating the script; (2) selecting images; and (3) editing, most occurring over the span of two one-on-one Teams calls.

(1) Creating the script. The greatest variation occurred in the generation of the digital story script. Participants were prompted to tell a story of their activism for gender transformative education, which could take place over years or within a short period of time. They were told the story could focus on local or global activism and that the script should be around 400–500 words. Some participants drafted the script themselves and sent it to Catherine; she then sent suggested edits back and the participant finalized the script. Most participants, however, crafted the story with Catherine during a one-on-one Teams call, which was not recorded. In some cases, the participant shared their screen and typed the story with Catherine offering suggestions when they got stuck. In others, Catherine shared her screen and the participant told the story out loud while Catherine typed it. They then edited the draft together during the call. Afterward, the participant recorded themselves reading the script out loud and sent the recording to Catherine.

(2) Selecting images. After finalizing the digital story script, Catherine showed the participant the WeVideo platform, clarifying next steps in relation to the kind of images that could be used and how they would put them all together. Participants were asked to select around seven images that aligned to their digital story and to record themselves reading their script aloud before joining Catherine on a subsequent call. They could use photos or videos they already had or new ones they took for the story. In a second call, the participant shared the images they had selected with Catherine and they talked through where each image would align with the recorded story. Often, we searched for abstract images that could be used alongside personal ones. Because the stories would ultimately be published online, they had to be careful about only selecting images with open access copyright, which made it difficult for participants to find and select their own images online. For most participants, it was very important that their name and image were included in the digital story and that it be directly attached to them, aligning with reflections on the power and ownership afforded when participants can choose to be identifiable (Lahman et al., 2015). One participant opted for de-identification in the story, going only by her first name and excluding any personal photos, including of her environment. For this participant, she and Catherine worked together to find exclusively open-access images that reflected her story.

(3) Editing. After images were selected and the recording was created, Catherine collaborated with each participant in a Teams calls to put the pieces together using the WeVideo program, deciding together where in the story the images should appear and selecting background music and special effects. Software like WeVideo requires more technical training or experience than most social media video editing tools. After the images were aligned with the audio recording, the RAs helped polish the digital stories, ensuring that video, text, and music lined up, looking for open access images to replace ones with closed copyright, creating credits at the end of the digital story, and verifying the volume was appropriate. Finally, we had to ensure there were no identifiable people aside from the participants in the personal photos included in the digital story. For individuals who the participant considered integral to the finished product, the participant obtained their written consent to use the photo. Otherwise, Valerie used the blur tool on Canva to de-identify distinguishable faces in the background while preserving the integrity of the photo. After the de-identified photos were added back into the stories, they were sent to the participants for approval.

Closing Focus Groups: Screening and Discussing the Digital Stories

The final FGD gathered all the participants from the original FGD, Catherine, and Meenal or Valerie (the same RA who joined the first FGD) back together. Following a welcome and overview of what was to follow, we screened the digital story of each participant in that group. Participants were invited to give a brief introduction to their story. After all the stories were screened, another open-ended FGD ensued, beginning with a question regarding what common themes they saw emerging from the digital stories and ending with a question regarding the key message they hoped would be clear to stakeholders seeing the digital stories. In each FGD, Catherine tried to ensure that all participants had an opportunity to speak, prompting participants who had been quieter to see whether they wanted to contribute. She also occasionally shared reflections on emerging themes to clarify her understanding and as a form of validation of very early initial analysis.

Data Analysis

After completing data collection, we began a multi-stage process of data analysis. First, we began with an initial conversation among the research team, reflecting on the successes and challenges of the online digital storytelling process. We then had a screening of all the digital stories among our team and including Farrah Munawar representing Transform Education (also one of the research participants) and Milena D’Atri from Plan International, a project collaborator, to reflect the perspective of international education stakeholders working with youth activists. After the screening, we had a group dialogue surrounding the themes we saw emerging in the digital stories, resulting in three themes: radical sisterhood, meaningful participation, and transformation in and through education.

Next, Catherine undertook a thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2021) of the data building on the initial themes identified in discussion with the RAs and representatives from Transform Education and Plan International. She prepared a draft report that was shared with the participants and Meenal and Valerie for input. Participants were invited to provide optional input by email and/or in one of two group calls in May 2024. Five of the twelve participants provided feedback on the draft report both in email and in the group discussions, which were also recorded and transcribed and used as data, following a secondary REB approval. The report was adapted in response to feedback from Meenal, Valerie, and the research participants before being finalized. It is now published on the project website alongside all the digital stories and the webinar recording. We felt our approach created an effective means of facilitating participant-centred research that gave participants heightened ownership, particularly in relation to telling their individual stories. The virtual adaptation of the methodology made the project feasible and we encourage its use for other teams who want to use digital storytelling but do not have the time or resources to bring participants together physically. The process created substantive opportunities as well as unanticipated challenges and complexities, described below.

Reflections and Recommendations

Transnational Connections

We originally pursued virtual digital storytelling because it was more affordable and enabled a degree of flexibility to accommodate participants’ busy schedules. While we had envisioned bringing participants together in groups organized by region, due to scheduling challenges, participants were ultimately grouped together based on availability. This led to having participants from vastly different locations participating in the same conversations: Group 1 had participants from Nepal, Indonesia, Uganda, and Nigeria, Group 2 from Pakistan, Zambia, and Malawi, and Group 3 from Vietnam, Kenya, Taiwan, and Cambodia. Some participants already knew each other through Transform Education, but many met for the first time in the virtual FGDs. An unanticipated benefit was the ways in which this facilitated cross-cultural analysis related to the essence of activism for gender transformative education. For example, after the closing focus group in which the digital stories were screened, Maya observed the commonalities connecting their stories across vastly different contexts:

After watching my video and the others’ videos, I basically think that we have similarities, like how we are actually struggling and then how society puts us through the portion that actually sometimes hinder us from access that [makes us] want to reach out… We can see that there are so many issues that make women not able to achieve their best potential, and all of us basically is just talking about how we want to empower women and girls around our country, or even around the world.

They also reflected on differences across their contexts; for example, Ngoc reflected that she could not fully relate to the challenges of gender discrimination in computer programming classes that Isabel described in her digital story of activism in Taiwan, because the schools they were working with in Vietnam could not afford computer technology. She reflected:

… when talking about like the relevance of Isabel’s story compared to our country context, I would say that this is a little bit different since we are not as developed [but] we also have certain influences from sexist cultures. It would apply to girls who are more like middle class and maybe like get to pursue their preferred subjects since schools in Vietnam… from a very young age, a lot of girls and also boys were shaped into pursuing very gendered subjects.

While first noticing the difference between the socioeconomic contexts of the two countries, Ngoc deepened her reflection to consider the intersections between gender and class within Vietnam. This demonstrates the value of the virtual transnational conversations to provoke participants’ reflection on the diverse manifestation of an issue across geographic, cultural, and socioeconomic contexts.

Participants reflected substantively on the value of Transform Education as a network of feminist activists that enabled them to connect and learn from each other. Inadvertently, the FGDs became an activity that further connected them. Yande reflected after watching the stories in her group:

I'm really inspired by all of the stories. I think it's a true testament of how people who are living in completely different parts of the world, coming from different communities, can share so much in common when it comes to gender transformative advocacy and activism.

These reflections spoke to virtual digital storytelling as advancing a sense of community and solidarity.

The mutual support between participants came through strongly in the chat and the emojis, echoing Frey and Bloch’s (2023) observation on the use of technology-facilitated mechanisms for strengthening relationality with researchers and between participants. While there were relational elements that we felt were diminished through the digital connection, particularly when participants had their cameras off, the virtual platform created a medium whereby participants could have side conversations in the chat and show their support for each other without interrupting the conversation. This enabled them to claim space by taking up the digital technology in ways that we had not suggested. It also enabled them to more comfortably share their reflections by crafting what they wanted to say in writing and putting it in the chat instead of turning on their microphone. Finally, it allowed them to use the space to send supportive messages to each other. For example, after screening two videos in a closing focus group, we reflected on the celebrations being expressed:

Catherine: So, there’s our second video! Amazing, Farrah! Yeah, they’re so different, but both so, so powerful, as Yande is saying [in the chat] … [after subsequently screening Damien’s video] And another incredible story! You can understand now why I’ve been so excited for you all to see each other’s stories because they are each so different. That’s so, as Yande saying [in the chat], “exceptional.” Alright, seeing that was so amazing. Damien, Yande captures it [in the chat] by “Fantabulous.” Damien, do you want to respond? Getting lots of love.

Damien: Oh, wow! Looks like I'm just having some positive reactions and thank you.

This validation and support emerged not only in reaction to the stories themselves but in response to comments that participants made in the subsequent FGDs. For example:

Ngoc: … sometimes I wondered, where's the entrance point? For like young activists who actually put their voices in and maybe comment on what these organizations have been doing really and like how to have better impact… except for just joining consultation workshops and not having like longer follow-ups, for example.

Catherine: Thanks so much. And you can see in the chat that Isabel's really resonating with how you how you expressed and captured that.

Participants also expressed their support for each other through the frequent use of heart, applause, and thumbs up emojis following the screening of stories and while others spoke to validate their peers. For example:

Maria: Schools need to be made accessible and to shift the mentality and attitudes and defy the norms and odds, and then that make a big difference in gender transformative education. That in turn will shift our behaviour.

[Heart reaction from Ngoc]

[Thumbs up from Mey]

A recommendation is to include in the consent protocol permission to screenshot when participants are sharing their reactions during the focus groups using emojis or the chat. Because we had not done so, RAs noted the use of emojis during the focus group and then inserted them into the transcript afterward in order for them to be recorded. Taking screenshots would more easily record and guarantee the accuracy of the message and generate a new element of visual data that could be more authentically inserted into the transcript.

Ownership

Participants were repeatedly given the option to be anonymous in the research products and in their digital stories, and the risks of not doing so were continually discussed. Nine of ten participants who completed digital stories wanted their names associated with their digital stories. Some added other identifying elements such as their pronouns or their activism organization. As the digital stories are very personal, it was important that they had the option to claim them through the use of their actual names if they wanted to (Lahman et al., 2015). Isabel, who opted to use only her first name and to exclude personal images from her story, still wanted to use her own voice in the recording to tell the story, demonstrating participants’ ability to declare what they were and were not comfortable with.

Participants wanted to use the stories for their own purposes, several times asking whether they would be able to share it in their own networks, including through social media. The answer was yes; the story first and foremost would belong to them. In creating the script, Catherine asked participants about who the target audience for their story was; these varied to include other female activists, education or international development policymakers, and stakeholders seeking to engage with youth participants. Maryada recorded a second version of her story in Nepali so that it could be shared within her local community; in the call to discuss the draft report, Damien shared that he trained other young people in storytelling as a result of his experience in the research process. Thus, participants demonstrated they were already using their story and their experience in the project to advance their local activism work.

On several occasions, we reminded the participants that this was their story and could include and exclude whatever they wanted. Several participants assumed that they should tell a certain kind of story, particularly one that described a narrative of trauma or discrimination. For example, while Farrah and Catherine were discussing whether to include an ongoing traumatic personal experience in her digital story, Farrah asked whether it would make for a better story. In this instance and others, Catherine reminded the participant that the only criteria was that their story describe activism related to gender transformative education, and that a story without trauma could still be poignant and powerful. She cautioned that there could be psychological impacts from speaking about a traumatic life experience in the digital story, and that they may wish to exclude this part of their story to avoid emotional or psychological distress. Participants were all accomplished activists, most of whom had already spoken regularly about difficult life experiences on public stages; for the most part, they chose to keep these parts of their story in the digital story because they hoped that sharing them would contribute to preventing similar things from happening to other people. For example, Joan’s story described the loss of her best friend, Gufasha Moureen, at age 13 following a forced marriage and death in childbirth. Joan’s activism journey and the organization she established, the Gufasha Girls Foundation, has been devoted to the memory of her friend. Joan reflected that the screening of her digital story was

really emotional, but amazing. Seeing my story on this screen, I just feel like I’m being heard… I know Moureen is not around but, in my head, I was like, I’m going to make you proud… The world will know this story. I just think I’m making her proud… wherever she is, I am making her proud.

This testimony highlights the value of digital stories as a mechanism for enabling participants to tell a story that is meaningful to them. While all the stories describe a process of becoming that occurs over years, some focus on journeys of local activism. For example, Maria’s story describes how she began school as a girl with cerebral palsy in Kenya and had to fight for her rights within education before eventually starting a foundation to conduct advocacy and capacity building to enhance the education system’s ability to better support girls with disabilities. Others explicitly address issues of activism occurring in primarily international arenas. Yande’s story, for example, critiques the shrinking civil society space at national and global levels resulting in heightened exclusion of young people from critical policy making venues. The diversity of these stories demonstrates the method’s capacity to support participants to drive the process and tell their unique stories.

We had intended to deepen participants’ ownership and control of the process by giving them the option to edit the stories themselves. This did happen with one participant, Maya, who was a social media influencer with prior experience using programs similar to WeVideo. Many participants were happy to have Catherine support the initial editing and Meenal and Valerie complete the edits without wanting to edit it themselves. Several participants, however, wanted to edit but struggled to learn how to use the program in such a short period of time. While youth are often considered more adept at picking up new technologies, particularly for creative purposes, our team found we gained comfort with WeVideo only by using it continuously throughout the creation and editing of multiple stories. The complexity of the digital story creation process, therefore, made handing control to participants more challenging than with other technology-based PVM, such as cellphilms or photovoice. That said, the more polished product created by the digital stories enhanced participants’ pride in claiming the finished product as their own. Thus, the sophistication of the digital storytelling medium, particularly when created in virtual spaces where the ability of the researchers to show participants what to do is more constrained, is both an advantage and a limitation as it relates to participant ownership.

Connecting Through Screens

While the virtual platform created opportunities for connection, it also made it harder to connect on a personal level. Most participants turned off their cameras during their focus group, sometimes, but not always, turning it back on to speak. This enabled them to be more comfortable and to control the terms of their participation, but we could not read facial cues and body language, which can be helpful for informing meaningful consent, building trust, and facilitating engaging and natural conversation (Archibald et al., 2019). During individual digital storytelling creation, participants mostly kept their cameras on, yet the virtual divide still at times made it difficult to connect with the participant. It was hard to read the subtleties of body language to determine how to ethically proceed when editing stories that included traumatic experiences. The editing process involves replaying the audio recording multiple times to align the image at the correct spot, thus the researcher and participant are both listening as parts of a story are repeated, which, if repeated when the story addresses a traumatic experience, could be re-traumatizing. Despite this risk, and the broader risk of psychological re-traumatization from sharing their story within the research, we recognize the need to respect participants’ decision about whether to disclose difficult parts of their story as an expression of their agency (Woodgate et al., 2020). We therefore recommend that, in addition to highlighting the risks and reminding participants that they can choose to exclude that part of their story, during the digital story editing, the researcher identifies the approximate point in the audio that the image should appear with the participant but then completes the detailed edits afterward without the participant.

Another significant, although unsurprising, challenge was unreliable internet connection, reflecting a common challenge in virtual research (Archibald et al., 2019). Although all participants were able to join their scheduled focus group and participate for its duration, poor internet connection frequently posed challenges with participants losing connectivity and then accidentally interrupting the conversation, limiting their access to the conversation and causing disruption for others remaining. Connection challenges were most disruptive in one closing FGD, in which the flow of conversation was disrupted and one participant repeatedly but unintentionally interrupted another as he struggled with poor internet connection.

Damien: Can I jump in before Farrah? Just one line.

Farrah: Yeah, of course. Go ahead.

Damien: OK.

[silence]

Catherine: Damien? [silence] So, Farrah, I think there's a big delay in audio getting to him.

Farrah: Yeah, I think so.

Catherine: Damien, can you hear us? [silence] Farrah, maybe you can continue and we'll come back to Damien once we have him back. So, you were saying about your unique experiences?

Farrah: Uh, yeah so the pattern I was noticing was –

Damien: OK. I think one line which kept poking up as Yande was speaking, and also as I watched the video, it's that our efforts and our advocacy… Are you able to hear me?

Catherine: Yes, we can hear you now. You're saying your efforts and your advocacy?

Damien: Hi, are you able to hear me?

Catherine: Yes, we can hear you now, Damien. [silence] Well, I'm sorry Farrah. And I'm sorry, Damien, for both of you, I think this is part of the challenges of the international work.

Damien: Alright, so I was saying that one thing which I've observed is all our inputs… [silence]

Catherine: Damien, can you keep going?

Damien: Yeah. OK. So, what I was saying was that our efforts, from what I've observed, also stands on the line which was just popping up in my head is to say that we also realize that no one is more expert than ourselves…

This disruption was exacerbated for participants experiencing heavy rain, which often halted their participation, forcing them to try to rejoin the call, and made it hard for them to hear and be heard. The research team had no control over this issue and saw it as a challenge that simply had to be dealt with patiently in order to enable the research to continue.

Images in the Stories

Digital storytelling typically focuses on personal stories, sometimes involving images from throughout a person’s life and sometimes asking them to take and include pictures from their surroundings. Rouhani (2019), for example, included guidance and instructions on taking pictures within the digital storytelling workshop and sent participants out to take pictures in the community that were then used within the stories. This was more challenging with our shorter workshop in which participants were disbursed and connecting over several weeks. Participants did bring their own images, all except for one including personal pictures, but also included additional images, for example landscapes that were reminiscent of the area where they grew up or pictures of smiling school children. Given all participants’ desire for the digital stories to be shared publicly, we could only use images which had open copyright licenses or those that were available through WeVideo. We recommend, as much as possible, to draw from personal images that are owned by the participant but do not have other identifiable people in them. Encourage participants to bring pictures that are not just of people and the relevant topic (in this case, activism) but also of objects and places that have meaning to them, such as the route they used to take to get to school. When using publicly accessible images, the research team should carefully familiarize themselves ahead of time with copyright policies and sources that provide high quality open access images.

Of the personal pictures the participants brought with them, there were often identifiable people, usually in the background. This was incongruent with the ethics protocol for the project, which dictated that the participants themselves could be identifiable in the pictures but nobody else. In some cases, participants chose other photos to use, but when they felt the picture in question was important, two versions of the video were created: one that was a public version, in which people other than the participants were de-identified by either cropping them out or by blurring their faces, and a private version which was for the participants to keep and use personally. There were several stories in which it was very important to a participant to include a picture of a specific person, usually a family member, as a tribute to them. For this reason, we returned to our institutional REB and requested an amendment to the protocol so that, in these exceptional circumstances, we could include images of other people when they were vital to the story, with their consent.

Conclusion

Despite challenges encountered, virtual digital storytelling presents a remarkable opportunity to leverage the voices of young activists and build transnational connections, simultaneously illustrating common themes and diverse perspectives. This is valuable as both a research method and an advocacy tool. The sentiment is expressed by Nga in her closing focus group:

Seeing all of the stories together like that… I think it's a powerful statement. What we want to advocate for, personally—we have different stories. We faced discrimination and inequality in different contexts, in different countries as well and, at the end of the day, the message is still we want to advocate for gender equality. I think it would be very great if we could have like more stories like that. So that we could prove that gender inequality is everywhere, in every field.

We advise that those interested in conducting virtual digital storytelling in research consider the lessons learned from our experience: prepare to document non-verbal engagement within the ethical protocol; advise participants to bring personal photos that include pictures of spaces and objects; include the possibility for identifiable people to give consent to have their images included in exceptional circumstances; give participants the option to use their names in association with the story, emphasizing the risks inherent in doing so; make detailed edits to parts of stories discussing traumatic experiences without the researcher and participant together on a call; and be prepared for disruptive internet connectivity challenges. As Woodgate et al. (2020) observe, researchers do not give youth a voice. This is particularly true of this group of participants, all of whom were activists already speaking on national and international stages about controversial topics. We found that, even with this group of accomplished participants, digital storytelling provided a powerful mechanism for counter-storytelling (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002) that the researchers could guide them through to send their message in a new and engaging way while generating rich research data. It enabled them to co-create stories that highlighted the diversity of their unique perspectives as well as their commonalities, enhancing the transnational solidarity they had already established through their involvement in Transform Education. The meaningfulness of the products and process was highly appreciated by the researchers and participants alike. Readers are invited to view the digital stories created here.