This presentation is based on: Ranieri M., Bruni I. (under review), Mobile storytelling and informal education in a suburban area: A qualitative study on the potential of digital narratives for young second generation of immigrants. Learning, Media and Technology.

1. One Day Seminar at CLTT
University of British Columbia –
Vancouver (CA) – April 16, 2012
Piagge Mobili: digital narratives
through facebook mobile
Maria Ranieri
Department of Education,
University of Florence
maria.ranieri@unifi.it
Credits: The project has been carried out in cooperation with Isabella Bruni, PhD
Student in Communication Sciences and Social Research, and with the support
of Le Piagge’s Community (Florence, IT).

2. Background and definitions
Piagge Mobili is an educational project based on
mobile storytelling, a subset of 'digital storytelling',
conducted through mobile devices in combination
with social network sites.
Digital storytelling was used in California in the late
1980s to connect communities through stories.
Nowadays, it is adopted for educational purposes as a
technique to produce multimedia narratives.

3. Context and Participants
The project was carried out in Le Piagge, a low-income district of
Florence (IT) with a considerable number of young people who
are at risk of social exclusion. It was part of the Re.T.e.
programme, one of the several initiatives promoted at informal
level by the local community of Le Piagge.
Target: 15 children aged 11-15, most of them being second
generation immigrants. The socio-economic status of the
participants’ families was low, with many single parent families
Duration: February -March 2011

8. Research questions
The overall purpose of the research project was to promote social
change, and to provide teens with resources for personal and
social development. More specifically, the research project
intended to face the following issues:
• How to help teenagers exploit their being familiar with mobile
phones and SNS to become more active and aware users of
digital media,
• How to develop participants’ new media literacies, particularly
referring to multimedia production and connectivity,
• How to improve participants’ capacity for self-expression and
their narrative skills,
• How to improve participants’ self-representations and their
representation of the community.

9. Methods and procedures
We followed an action-research approach based on three cycles of
action, involving educators and researchers in the process of
reflection and (re)planning.
In the different cycles we adopted diverse qualitative research
methods to collect and analyse data, paying attention especially
to the conceptual categories of self-representation, self-
expression, interaction, narrative, and new media literacies.
In the end, various types of data—including diaries from
observations, documents, video recordings, photos, drawings
and multimedia products—were collected and then organised
into categories with labels.

10. Let’s start with narratives!
The way they see themselves and their environment

11. The Collective Facebook Profile

12. The Action-Research Process
Stages Problem Strategies Application Evaluation Reflection
Approaching How to Descovering Sharing and Projective tests Difficulties in
mobile stimulate self- multimedia commenting Observation narratives
functions and expression? practices personal Videorecording
narratives contents
Being on the How to prompt Using social Creation of Observation From
Net to share teens to create media and mobile stories Videorecording participation
micro-stories stories through group work thorugh sms Product analysis divide to
created by collaboration and written involvement
SMSs story
Inventing and How to increase Video Dramatization Observation High level of
representing teens production and and Videorecording involvement
stories involvement in public event videorecordings Product analysis and media
creating stories Projective tests exploration
Criteria of Self-representation; Self-expression; Interaction; Narrative; New media literacy
analysis

13. Findings from Observations
Permanence: Resistance:
“younger children interacted
a certain discontinuity in the mostly between themselves,
attendance but high level of as did the older ones”
trust in educators.
Evolution:
Resistance: “from the second stage
“some difficulties emerged onwards, they were more
during the initial test [...] there collaborative...even those
was the risk of the project who persisted in maintaining
being perceived as schooling an attitude of refusal
and boring” became active over the
time”

14. Findings from Observations
Evolution: Evolution:
“Facebook is the mirror of The idea was to begin
their identity, their space for creating the story orally by
peer interaction. That’s why running a digital recorder
sometimes we perceived a within the group, but two
bit of anxiety when photos rounds were made and not
or videos were posted on the even a word was spoken”.
profile, as if it could be a But then: “we were
threat to their reputation” impressed that nobody
wanted to record his voice,
but with mobile phones they
immediately got involved”

15. Findings from visual data
Getting the power over the media!
Media as ambivalent resources…

16. Findings from drawings
Drawings before and after the intervention

17. Findings from stories
Proviamo a fare una storia… Let's try to make a story...
Cerano una volta dei ragazzi Once upon a time there were some
guys
Tre belle ragazze con fantastici capelli Three pretty girls with beautiful long
lunghi e due ragazzi pazzerelli, ma hair and two crazy boys, really nice J
molto simpatici.:)
Una ragazza bionda e due more. One girl had blonde hair and two had
Erano fidanzate tutte e tre. Andavano brown hair. They all were in a
al mare con la macchina relationship. They were going to the
sea by car
I 2 ragazzi erano sporchi The two boys were dirty
Che facevano l'aUTOStop per andare Maybe were they hitchhiking to go to
al mare a darsi una pulita? Non ho the sea and wash themselves? I have
niente per te. nothing to say
Pur non avendo niente x loro, While not having anything for them,
arrivarono al mare e fecero il bagno… they arrived to the sea and
Nudi! bathed...naked!
Transcript via sms story

18. Findings from stories
C’era una volta un bambino rumeno non There was once a Romanian child who was
integrato nella comunità per colpa di un not integrated into the community because
vecchio. of an old man.
Il vecchio si approfittava della sua stupidità The old man took advantage of his stupidity
e pensava che le cose che diceva fossero and thought to say the right things.
giuste.
Spesso il bambino litigava con il vecchio, Often the child argued with the old man,
prendeva e andava via, ma poi tornava per and he went away, but after he came back
chiedere delle spiegazioni: “ ma perché mi to ask for some explanations, he said: “Why
tratti così?” are you treating me so badly?”.
perché io non o mai avuto dei figli percio ti “Because I never had children, so I treat you
tatto in questa magniera like this”.
"ma fai male a comportarti così con me". “But you are wrong to treat me like this”
(e alla fine morì d’infarto). (and eventually he died of a heart attack).
Ma poi ando al ospedale e i medici lo But then he went to the hospital and the
salvarono con una cura miracolosa per i doctors saved him with a miraculous cure,
vecchi solo per i vecchi. just for old people.
Il bambino lo andò a salutare all’ospedale The child went to visit him in the hospital,
portandogli dei fiori. bringing some flowers.
Transcript written story

19. Final production
The Young and the Old Men

20. Discussion
Three main results regarding the potential of mobile storytelling
for self-expression and participation
• From non-visibility to exploitation of the camera to shoot each
other, to investigate their bodies, to reflect and be reflected;
• From silence to the use of mobile phones to take pictures, write
sentences and discover cell phone’s affordances;
• Laconicism and misspelling testifies children’s linguistic
difficulties. In certain situations, the use of digital media can
reinforce pre-existing divides and this suggests that there is a
strong requirement for public education to take a much more
active role (both in formal and informal contexts) in balancing
inequalities.

21. Limitations and developments
The study has number of limitations:
• it involved a few group of teens for a relatively short time; then,
the research results cannot be generalysed;
• it did not evaluate the indirect impact of the intervention on
pupils’ performance at school;
• it did not analyse the social benefits of the experience for the
children and their families.
Further action-research projects should be conducted in a similar
vein to increase parents involvement and evaluate the impact of
the intervention on the long run.
Another area of interest is the study of the impact of ‘textese’
practice on old and new literacies.

22. For further information
This talk is based on:
Ranieri M., Bruni I. (under review), Mobile storytelling and
informal education in a suburban area: A qualitative study
on the potential of digital narratives for young second
generation of immigrants. Learning, Media and
Technology.

23. References
Buckingham, D., ed. 2007. Youth, Identity, and Digital Media.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Caron, A., and L. Caronia. 2007. Moving Cultures: Mobile
communication in everyday life. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s
University Press.
Pachler, N., B. Bachmair, and J. Cook. 2010. Mobile learning:
structures, agency, practices. New York: Springer.
Papacharissi, Z. 2011. A networked self: Identity, community and
culture on social network sites, New York-London: Routledge.
Rheingold, H. 2008. Using Participatory Media and Public Voice to
Encourage Civic Engagement. In W. L. Bennett 2008, 97–118.

24. One Day Seminar at CLTT
University of British Columbia –
Vancouver (CA) – April 16, 2012
Thank you!
Maria Ranieri
Department of Education,
University of Florence
maria.ranieri@unifi.it
Credits: The project has been carried out in cooperation with Isabella Bruni, PhD
Student in Communication Sciences and Social Research, and with the support
of Le Piagge’s Community (Florence, IT).