How can we curate and make permanent the narratives and transient experiences we share daily on the web? Can we preserve a player's participation in an Alternate Reality Game that spans continents and platforms, or in reading a story that disappears from the world once its last page is turned?
Dr Tom Abba of the University of the West of England is investigating this – he has just been awarded an early career research grant to identify strategies for archiving new and existing digital works. These works or narratives are 'born-digital' – story forms created on the web, but echoing the shapes of novels, films, poems, and other media. His research into how to classify and curate these digital narratives will strengthen UWE's emerging reputation for research into new and interactive media, focused through the University's Digital Cultures Research Centre.
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Tom says, “The transitory nature of the web, and the speed at which things emerge and quickly vanish, causes all sorts of problems for scholars looking to understand new forms of story. The third insight for my research was recognising that there was an opportunity to take hold of some of those curatorial questions, and try to determine what was worth holding onto for future generations and why.
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