Ich hatte vor einigen Wochen gefragt, was denn der Begriff "Storytelling" bedeutet, nachdem ich Seiten entdeckt hatte, die darunter das nahezu esoterische, immer aber selbstreflektierende Erzählen über sich selbst verstanden. Hier Ausschnitte aus einigen Antworten, die ich von amerikanischen Multimedia-Webloggern bekam:

Joe Weiss (Multimedia Storytelling):

I'm as confused as you are concerning the use of the term "digital storytelling" ... I don't think I've ever heard of it used in the way that storycenter.org described.

It carries no special meaning to me. However in performing a basic google search, I see that many many organizations are using the term in the storycenter sense.

"storytelling" is a very informal word in reference to journalism. When I hear the phrase, my first impression is my grandmother telling stories about hurricanes while we're sitting around the fireplace. Some narrative journalist do refer to storytelling in the sense of crafting a readable, interesting story ... Poynter uses the term in this way.

Mindy McAdams:

In North America, it has a rich tradition with the Native Americans; with settlers or cowboys sitting around a fire at night; with slaves in the slave quarters after the day's work was done. Some stories are true, but most are at least a little dramatized.

Now, the connection to journalism is kind of strange, because if real storytelling is dramatized, and often exaggerated, then you might think journalists would set themselves apart from it. But all our textbooks make some reference to journalism as storytelling, I think. The idea is that a story is interesting, and if you get the chance to tell a story, then you have a chance -- as a journalist -- to really connect with people.

When we are trying to inspire students, we talk about storytelling -- not only in the journalism writing classes, but also in our photojournalism classes and the online journalism classes. Our documentary video faculty always talk about storytelling.

Es scheint also doch so zu sein, dass der Begriff genauso allgemein verwendet wird, wie "Geschichten erzählen" im Deutschen. Die Verwendung auf storycenter.org scheint eine spezielle zu sein. Verwendet man den Begriff im Journalismus, scheint selbstverständlich das professionelle Erzählen über andere wie in einer guten Reportage gemeint zu sein. Ohne die Bedeutung von "Übertreibung" oder "Erfindung" ebenfalls zu übernehmen und ohne den Begriff auf das "Erzählen seiner eigenen Geschichte" zu beschränken.