Woman, Gender and Story in a Digitalized World: A Content Analysis for Digital Storytelling

Abstract

Understanding social reality is an important requirement in social sciences research. Women's studies is a social sciences research area that seeks to understand social facts with a view to reveal the reasons and solutions of all issues that cause discrimination against women, especially gender inequality.  Through its technology-supported narrative inquiry approach, digital storytelling can be a means to reveal meaning, especially in community-based research. In this context, this study aims to conduct an in-depth study of digital storytelling in researches that have been conducted in the context of Women's Studies and gender. In line with the purpose of the research, a systematic literature analysis was carried out for research using digital narrative in that context. Content analysis was applied to 42 articles that can be accessed for research purposes in the databases of Web of Science (WOS), Scopus, Science Direct and Ebscohost, without time limitation. According to the findings of the research; It has been determined that digital storytelling is used at a very limited level and mostly as a data analysis method in studies conducted in the context of Women's Studies and gender. However, it has been concluded that digital narrative is used in studies focusing especially on women who are exposed to multiple discrimination. In addition to this, it has been revealed that digital storytelling can contribute positively to the well-being and socialization of the participants as well as the development of self-efficacy of the participants in creating social awareness about women's issues. Based on the results of the research, digital storytelling in women's studies and gender studies were discussed from various angles and various suggestions were given regarding the contributions it can offer.