Long-form multimedia storytelling for the communication of subcultural heritage: a case study for a document-based portrayal of subcultures and youth cultures

Subcultures, as cultural practices implemented by social actors who seek to distinguish themselves within more complex cultural systems, provide belief systems, customs, practices, and codes of social interaction that can turn into countercultures, or be absorbed by society in the form of fashion and lifestyle expressions. In this context of opposition to a hegemonic culture, alternative cultures and youth cultures exhibit a complex relation with mainstream culture. Elements of opposition to the institutionalized culture, such as copyright infringement, anti-commercialism and anti-conformism challenge the possibilities of integration into formal heritage frameworks and introduce elements of complexity with regard to the preservation, documentation and communication of such cultures through the traditional instruments of cultural heritage. In this paper, we present a digital storytelling format that aims to build a multimedia narrative, based on historical documents and testimonies, that aims to portray the complex nature of historicized subcultures through the use of historic documents and contemporary testimonies. This format allows to create a dialogue between the external representation of the subculture, as perceived by mass-media and self- representations provided by the culture itself, through self-produced communication artifacts, such as fanzines, pirate and free radios, forums, websites, and social media. The proposed format is presented through a case study designed to describe the subculture originated from the Pordenone punk scene, in Italy. The digital storytelling project is composed of two main modules: the first provides a rich multimedia narrative based on more than 446 photographs, 12 posters, 10 fanzine, 8 records, and 5 videos that reconstruct the evolution of the subculture, its main protagonists, the places of its development, and the artifacts that have been produced by it. The second module offers a digital archive that allows for direct-access fruition of the documents, allowing for a personal exploration of the contents.