What kinds of engagement might be possible for young people through the creation and experience of a cyberdrama? How do you create a cyberdrama? These were the questions that underpinned the process for creating the cyberdrama www.cleo-missing.com – a drama that was created to be experienced through a fully mediated form on the Internet. The background for this project involved: exploring the context for creating a web-based cyberdrama with young people; defining cyberdrama, the nature of the work and possible processes and forms; and examining the notion of engagement, looking for possible links between aspects of the aesthetic and the immersive. The process of creating the drama utilised aspects of process drama, a form emerging from the field of drama education as one that offers up huge potential for the creation of on-line interactive drama. The project research suggests that the context for experiencing the work through the Internet means that the experience of “diversion” needs to be considered and is much more likely for many users than that of “immersion”. This is particularly so in view of the ways many young people use the Internet, with common interactions taking on aspects of Bakhtin’s “carnival” (a subversive or alternative order). The experience for participants in creating the drama was characterised by a number of features, but engagement seemed particularly strong when aspects of control were involved or possible. The framing of this experience through the use of various recording technologies was of key significance to this experience of engagement; the possibility of creating a presence that may affirm a participant’s sense of existence seems to engage participants solidly in the process. The research also suggested that for those creating drama on-line the use of a fairly linear narrative structure may still be desirable, and that the more significant experiences of engagement occur when a number of pleasures are experienced in combination.
The findings of this research may be of relevance to those interesting in exploring the possibilities of creating drama with young people utilising mediated forms.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/265217 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Davis, Susan Elizabeth |
| Publisher | Queensland University of Technology |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Copyright Susan Elizabeth Davis |
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