Virtual Bus Tours

Connecting Local/Locales Across Distances…

Our long term goal in Networked Narratives is applying the genre and civic imagination towards addressing problems at the world scale. In Networked Narratives, we explore ways in which digital storytelling communities might build bridges to better understanding of each other. Is it possible to overcome inherent differences as we build fictive worlds together?

This key question has led us to the “Tour Bus” phase of this on-going Networked Narratives experiment. We will hop on our #NetNarr bus and visit different locales and engage different cultural contexts, sharpening our lens on what invisible expectations we hold about different parts of the world. In the process, we hope to tell new stories and discover new perspectives.

When we say local, we want to ask people to think of the locales where they live, work, and play, to use media to capture what they see as special, unique, valuable to where they live. We also want to compare what people know of other places from their own experiences or pop culture, as well as what they find via the internet, with the actual experiences of people who live in those places.

An inspiration for us…

These #NetNarr virtual bus is planning a few stops in March, 2017. Each stop will start the week with a pre-meeting sharing activity and a few days later we will drive out Google Hangout bus to various points around the world.

Virtual Bus Tour Schematic Plans

The “#NetNarr Bus Stop” concept is about exploring local worlds, reaching across divides so we can understand and make new connections. We are interested in sowing seeds of more meaningful connection across vast divides. What does it take to pul...

Bus Stop 1: Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

The first bus stop, the week of February 27, is on the west coast of Mexico, the Pacific ocean facing city of Puerto Vallarta. Our local host is Laura Aguilar, a professor who teaches tourism at the University of Guadalajara in Puerto Vallarta -- "Centro...

Bus Stop 2: Young Writers Project, Vermont

For the week of March 13, 2017, the bus is headed north to the northeast corner of the US, to Vermont. It's as much driving the bus to a place on the web as a geographic locale, we are pullng the pus right into the web site of the Young Writers Project...

Bus Stop 3: Wollongong, Australia

We are going far the week of March 20, 2017, as we are headed down under to Wollongong, Australia. It's a long drive, but the Bus is ready. Are you? Our host this week is Kate Bowles and we are designing activities around the idea of "the storied...

Bus Stop 4: Cairo, Egypt

For the week of March 27, the bus is driving to the far away (from New Jersey) city of Cairo, Egypt. Our hosts this week include Maha Bali, Hoda Mostafa, and Sherif Osman from the American University in Cairo (AUC). We are continuing our exploration...

Bus Stop 5: Open Participants

We left the bus keys out on the table and those rowdy open participants took it for their own bus tour. Mark is responsible for providing the shiny bus https://twitter.com/MCorbettWilson/status/851957149244817408 Bus drivers Wendy (sitting in...

Featured image: “Bus” pixabay photo by MichaelGaida shared under a CC0 license edited to add “netnarr” and “Alchemy” to the bus