In fall 2022, I began my first quarter at UCSF as a sociology doctoral student. I had just completed my bachelor's degree in sociology as a re-entry student at UC Berkeley, an immense milestone for me as a first-generation college student. Although I looked forward to my learning experience at UCSF, I was also anxious and still mentally exhausted from barely surviving my undergraduate experience during the COVID-19 pandemic. I also was struggling to understand my place in academia, as prior experiences of discrimination had impacted how I saw myself within higher education. I did not have a space to share these experiences in my first quarter as a student at UCSF. As a consequence of this, I battled with depression and anxiety throughout my coursework.
It was at the end of the winter quarter in my first year that I was introduced to digital storytelling. I was accepted into the Story Jam program, implemented by the Institute of Community Inclusion (ICI) at the University of Massachusetts Boston, to participate in their “Women Leading Together” online program. Through this experience, I learned about the digital storytelling process. 
This included talking about my experiences of being a student with multiple disabilities, including Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder. This was the first time I shared my experiences with a group of my peers. Through these discussions, and with the support of digital storytelling facilitators, I created my first digital video, “Through the Looking Glass”.
This experience empowered me with the creative outlet I needed to share my experiences with others. It gave me the means and space needed to be vulnerable to tell a personal story that had been weighing on my mind since I was admitted into my PhD program. It lifted a weight I had been carrying on my shoulders. It also empowered me to tell other stories that I had felt uncomfortable sharing with others.
For instance, in the second year as a doctoral student, I participated in Story Jam again, for their TOMODACHI program for youth with disabilities. This time, I was given the opportunity to talk about my experiences with suicidal ideation as a neurodivergent person through my digital video, “The Odyssey of a Neurodivergent Castaway”. Researching neurodiversity as a med soc student informed me of the struggles that other neurodivergent people encounter, including loneliness, isolation, and suicidal ideation. I wanted to speak about my experience grappling with these challenges and how I eventually found belonging and happiness through my Story Jam digital video.
Digital storytelling can be a powerful medium in which to share information. Defined broadly, digital storytelling is a method of storytelling involving digital videos approximately 3-5 minutes in length, which integrate written and narrated stories with multiple aesthetic components (e.g., images, audio, video clips, etc.) (West et al. 2022). Digital storytelling is a method of storytelling that utilizes modern technology to create multimedia video presentations that convey personal and community stories (Lal et al. 2015). This method has been used in various contexts over the years, from documenting narratives of disadvantaged groups to health promotion or even research purposes (Lenette & Brough 2015).
Many scholars have written about the ways digital storytelling can provide people from marginalized communities the opportunity to cultivate their skills in creativity and narration through technology and in collaboration with peers to share a story (Sikapa et al. 2024; Saridaki & Meimaris 2018). In particular, digital storytelling is a helpful tool to elevate the experiences of disabled people. For instance, people with intellectual disabilities, who are often subjected to roles that make them feel invisible or misunderstood, can explore their experience of self-advocacy and leadership through digital stories (Ellem et al. 2022).
In terms of methodology, digital stories can elevate the agency of participants within the research process by serving as a medium in which to co-produce knowledge (Harris et al. 2024). Furthermore, both digital art and video can challenge dominant representations of non-normative bodyminds while also providing access and inclusion to people who are typically excluded from the research process (Rice & Mündel 2019). Although creating digital stories requires significant resources, such as time, access to digital tools, financial resources, and co-facilitators that create inclusive spaces to share vulnerability (Sikapa et al. 2024; Rice & Mündel 2019) the creative process and collaborative experience of digital storytelling can provide both data and methods for capturing how disabled actors create meaning making and exercise their agency as knowledge experts.
Title of Image 1: “Beating Heart”
Title of Image 2: “Budding Gloom”
Title of Image 3: “Life Support Dwindling”
Title of Image 4: “Extraterrestrial Kinship”
REFERENCES
Ellem, K., Harris, P., & Strnadova, I. 2022. “Emerging from the shadows: Digital stories of self‐advocates with intellectual disabilities”. Journal of Policy and Practice in Intellectual Disabilities, 19(4), 360-369.
Harris, P., Ellem, K., Gallagher, H., Burgess, A., Abson, L., Sunderland, N., and Name of Self-Advocacy Group Changed for Publications Purposes, The Queenslander Self-Advocates. 2024. "Building capacity to engage in co-produced research: Reflections from a digital storytelling project." Disability & Society 39, no. 5: 1256-1275.
Lal, S., C. Donnelly, & J. Shin. 2015. “Digital Storytelling: An Innovative Tool for Practice, Education and Research.” Occupational Therapy in Health Care 29 (1): 54–62. doi:10.31 09/07380577.2014.958888.
Lenette, C., L. Cox, & M. Brough. 2015. “Digital Storytelling as a Social Work Tool: Learning from Ethnographic Research with Women from Refugee Backgrounds.” British Journal of Social Work 45 (3): 988–1005. doi:10.1093/bjsw/bct184.
Rice, C., & Mündel, I. 2019. “Multimedia storytelling methodology: Notes on access and inclusion in neoliberal times”. Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, 8(1), 118-148.
Saridaki, M., & Meimaris, M. 2018. “Digital Storytelling for the empowerment of people with intellectual disabilities”. In Proceedings of the 8th international conference on software development and technologies for enhancing accessibility and fighting info-exclusion (pp. 161-164).
Sikapa, L. L., Dialo, H., Ndi, V. N., Neindefoh, L. S., Nkemchap, C. D., & Cockburn, L. 2024. “Digital storytelling to promote disability-inclusive research in Africa”. African Journal of Disability (Online), 13, 1-10.
Sitter, K. C., Allemang, B., Pabia, M. R., Gaunt, E., Herrera, A., & Howell, B. 2023. “Cripping Digital Storytelling: Disability, accessibility, and celebrating difference”. Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, 12(1), 29-58.
West, C. H., Rieger, K. L., Kenny, A., Chooniedass, R., Mitchell, K. M., Winther Klippenstein, A., ... & Scott, S. D. 2022. “Digital storytelling as a method in health research: A systematic review”. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 21, 16094069221111118.
Esperanza Padilla is a doctoral student in the Department of Social & Behavioral Sciences at UCSF.