Social media fiction. A framework for designing narrativity on social media

Today, social media represent an emergent territory for digital storytelling, introducing new challenges and possibilities for the creation and dissemination of contents. The evolving area of social media platforms on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the use that designers make of scenarios, fiction, and storyworlds in order to address complex issues and engage with specific targets or communities, require a systemic approach to the creation of narrative artefacts. The use of digital narrative, either fiction or non-fiction, can be considered as a communication strategy, which is able to offer designers and audiences new opportunities to create meanings that reflects our new media culture. This research has the goal of investigating and analysing works of fiction produced and conveyed on social media platforms, which can be considered both as a communicative artefact for the entertainment market, and as part of transmedia and crossmedia strategies. The hypothesis I would like to bring into discussion is that social media, having its own properties and characteristics, brings new parameters for analysing and designing digital narratives. These new parameters are not replacing more traditional and classical features of narrative artefacts. On the contrary, new parameters are added to the classical narrative elements, and both groups of characteristics should be taken into consideration in the design of digital narratives on social media. The study is based on a pragmatic paradigm, using the methodological approach of research through design. Field research is conducted through a series of workshops and activities, which are different in terms of duration, number of participants, background and skills of participants, and setting. Each phase of the field work, takes advantage of the qualitative data gained during the precedent design activity, in order to improve the analytical, theoretical, and practical contributions which are necessary to answer the research questions. Goal of the fieldwork phase is to conceive and prototype tools and methods, able to support the design activity of narratives on digital channels and social media.What are the parameters social media are bringing to the design of digital narratives? How designers can be supported in the design activity of narrative artefacts in a highly dynamic and evolving context, as that of digital media? Answering the research questions, this work aims at bringing a contribution to the domain of communication design, introducing a framework for conceiving, producing and communicating using micronarratives on social media, keeping into account on the one hand, the formal aspects required by digital platforms in terms of architecture, content and user interaction; on the other hand, the ability to build engaging and compelling narratives for many targets.

Oggi, i social media rappresentano un terreno emergente per il digital storytelling, introducendo nuove sfide e potenzialità per la creazione e disseminazione di contenuti. 
L’uso della narrazione digitale, sia essa di fiction o non-fiction, si costituisce come una strategia comunicativa in grado di coinvolgere gli utenti della rete, offrendo ad autori e designers nuove modalità per costruire significati in grado di riflettere l’odierna cultura mediale. Le narrazioni sui social media si costituiscono quindi come una tipologia di strumenti creativi attraverso i quali è possibile generare dialogo, collaborazione e interazione. Il presente lavoro di ricerca si pone come obiettivo l’indagine e l’analisi della narrazione di fiction prodotta e disseminata attraverso i social media, intesa sia come un prodotto comunicativo generato per il mercato dell’intrattenimento, sia come parte integrante di strategie di comunicazione in ottica transmediale e crossmediale.
Il lavoro di ricerca si sviluppa ulteriormente attraverso la modalità della ricerca sul campo per progettare, prototipare e testare strumenti a supporto della progettazione di narrazioni di fiction 
sui canali digitali e sulle piattaforme social. Quali sono i parametri apportati dai social media al progetto di narrazioni digitali? Come possono essere supportati i designer nell’attività di progettazione di artefatti narrativi in un contesto dinamico e in evoluzione come quello dei social media? La risposta alle domande di ricerca intende contribuire al campo del design della comunicazione proponendo una cornice di riferimento per la concezione, produzione e comunicazione della narratività, tenendo in considerazione da un lato gli aspetti formali richiesti dalle piattaforme digitali in termini di architettura, contenuto e interazione con gli utenti, dall’altro la capacità di costruire narrazioni stimolanti e coinvolgenti per molteplici target di riferimento.