Relaunched this week, the new, improved and spit-shined Interactive Narratives 2.0 is a showcase for what’s possible in multimedia storytelling.
The site offers lots of new features, including an invitation for journalists to self-submit multimedia projects and to join a conversation about the work. Andrew DeVigal, multimedia editor at The New York Times, created the site in 2003 and partnered with the Online News Association to get this version off the ground.
“It’s an opportunity to see the wide range of brilliant work that’s produced out there,” said DeVigal, “not just in the big news organizations, but also in the small and medium-sized organizations — as well as by the independent journalists who are doing some phenomenal work.”
In just a few days, the site has logged 80 new registered users. Forty multimedia projects have been submitted, and over 1,100 multimedia entries are in the database. In this edited interview, DeVigal shares what inspired the project and how journalists can best make use of it.
Sara Quinn: Where did the idea come from for the first incarnation of Interactive Narratives?
Andrew DeVigal: It stemmed from my doing a lot of presentations and developing teaching materials, both at Poynter and at conferences. I found myself referring to the same Web sites –- or at least bookmarking the same Web sites or multimedia packages over and over. And in those days, I prepared all of my presentations in Macromedia Director. Crazy, I know. I wanted a browser-based presentation platform.
Ultimately, I wanted to create a database that stored all of these links in one place. Once I started collecting them I realized that other people might have the same use for them. So, I ended up working with Ervic Aquino of Stormline Media to make the database available for the world.
How did you select projects for your site?
DeVigal: Back in those days if it blew me away in terms of storytelling, I would rank that high on the list. If it impressed me in terms of its design and presentation, I would also rank it. And the third reason was if there was something innovative about it. Those were the criteria I used.
What’s different about version 2.0?
DeVigal: The main thing is that I will no longer be the keeper of the database. I’m basically going to trust the community to be its own sort of watchdog of rich, deep packages of storytelling. I’ve relinquished the keys to the rest of the community so that they can submit, rank and comment on it.
It still falls under sort of the same criteria with the site ability to sort.
I’m also trusting that the community will rank them by giving them some sort of star value and comments. There will be a social networking aspect to identifying those storytelling packages that rise to a high caliber.
You can also sort the database now, by storytelling design and innovation. So if you really wanted to just sort through the highly ranked or the starred versions of anything, you can do that.
If someone wants to comment on a package, what are the options?
DeVigal: First, you have to register and then log in. That’s one of the things that we do require. You can observe the community if you don’t log in, but if you want to participate –- to rate an entry or comment — you actually have to register first.
Part of the registration that we ask for is to give your real name. We’ll have some tolerance there. But if you are unidentified, we’ll reserve the right to block you, or whatever. I think it creates a better community once you become responsible for your own comments and ratings. And the quality of entries and submissions need to remain high to keep Interactive Narratives relevant to the community.
Who can submit work to the site?
DeVigal: Once you become a member, you can submit your own entries. What I hope is that people will put in work that they have done themselves, or that has been done by their own organization.
One of the important things I want to mention is that you can submit tags. It’s organized based on tags. I’m hoping to leave this up to the community to regulate the tagging order.
On some entries, we’ve also allowed podcasting. You can actually associate an audio file for the podcast. The idea there is to actually hear the voices behind the producers. This time, instead of creating a blog of podcasts, the podcasts will be associated with the actual entries.
Is there anything else like this online? Anything that showcases content like this?
DeVigal: I think there are some really good bloggers out there that keep people up to date with what’s happening. Interactive Narratives can’t replace that, but rather I hope that it’ll be a part of that conversation. It’s one of the reasons you can also designate a Trackback (or URL) for each comment. So that you can extend your comments on your own blogs.
I also want to see Interactive Narratives become a way for people to look at all of the conversation that’s happening and to digest all of that into a site that talks about the different types of media. I want it to become a companion to the conversation that’s happening in blogs.
This is one of the reasons that I called it Interactive Narratives — it’s not just about photojournalism, video journalism or interactive graphics. It’s not about the medium itself but rather all aspects of what multimedia can deliver. It’s about how we interact with the journalism — a way to look at narratives as a way to engage with the characters of the stories and sometimes, the journalists themselves.
How does this relate to blogs?
DeVigal: I also created a NetVibes Universe for Interactive Narratives. This is where I sort of congregate a lot of the blogs that I look into. It’s a way to look at a lot of the conversation and what’s being said.
If you visit the Universe, you’ll notice that in that space, the conversation is divided up by media types on the top tabs. So, in that space, you can navigate to the tab that most resonates with your area of expertise: video, photo, graphics, Academia and so on.
In them, you’ll find the blogs that look at Web 2.0 or Web journalism, video journalism, photojournalism, interactive graphics, blogs dedicated to Academia and also publications that have their own blogs. It’s a resource that kind of just aggregates it all together at once.
Who is your partner on Interactive Narratives 2.0? Who’s doing the muscle work?
DeVigal: ONA — The Online News Association was generous enough to put in a few bills to at least try to get it where it is today. It’s really a partnership in the sense that they’re an organization that’s really thinking about how the industry can evolve. It’s been great to be a part of that. That’s why the co-branding is happening.
In terms of the back-end development, I’m still working closely with my previous technical whiz and friend Ervic Aquino of Stormline Media. Also, my brother Angelo DeVigal (yes, you guessed it, my brother and business partner) was the chief designer and finally, but not least, Jason Speck was the visual technologist who crafted the CSS and interaction design. Jason also created the very handy bookmarklet that you can drag to your browser from the submit page. With it, you can simply hit a single button to submit an entry to Interactive Narratives.
That’s the team. But, again, the hope and the goal is that this site becomes relatively self-sufficient. I’m also going to designate a few super-users — people who are very involved in the industry to help maintain the quality. There’s going to be some oversight on the entries and comments, again, to keep the relevance to the community high.
So, who is your primary audience for the site?
DeVigal: Well, I’m hoping it’s going to be journalists.
A year ago, or two years ago, I would have said multimedia journalists. But I think the description of multimedia is going to be pretty natural for any journalist that’s coming into the field now. They have to be pretty capable of telling their stories in multiple ways.
This is for journalists interested in how to tell stories in various forms of narrative, such as photojournalism, video, audio, interactive graphics. Hopefully, they’ll find benefit in showcasing great multimedia work that’s happening in the industry. As well as finding inspiration from the amazing work that’s being produced out there from large, medium and small organizations as well as the independents.
