Beyond Thick Dialogue: Oral History and the “Thickening” of Multimedia Storytelling

Abstract

This self-reflexive essay considers the transformation a project takes as it moves from an academically based oral history to documentary film and associated online content. The project in question is tracing the history of the WAVES of World War II and uses material gathered by the researcher as well as interviews and historical documents found in archives. In oral history, researchers aim for something known as “thick dialogue”: detail-laden discussions that reveal the narrator's motivations and interpretations of history. But how to maintain that detail while still adhering to the time constraints and storytelling conventions of film? And how to, in turn, ethically and accurately translate both the film and the interviews into web-based exhibits? Deciding which stories to include, and which ones to leave out, can be wrenching acts of balance, requiring the oral historian/documentarian/curator to consider both how to best serve the overall project while also determining how to best represent an individual life.

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Notes on contributors

Kathleen M. Ryan

Kathleen M. Ryan's research areas include oral history, visual communication and production practices and aesthetics. She is also an active documentary filmmaker: Homefront Heroines: The WAVES of World War II is her second feature-length film. She holds degrees from the University of Oregon (PhD), University of Southern California (MA), and the University of California Santa Barbara (BA). She thanks the 50+ women who shared their life stories for this project.

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