Center for Digital Narrative

The Center for Digital Narrative (CDN) is a Norwegian Center of Research Excellence dedicated to establishing digital narrative as a new, independent, and interdisciplinary field of study. Our mission is to move beyond the state of the art in digital humanities and develop new frameworks for understanding how stories are created, experienced, and transformed through technologies. Narratives are fundamental to human existence. They shape how we understand ourselves, our communities, and the world around us. Narratives structure our individual and collective understanding of matters ranging from our ideas of the self to our understanding of the nation-state, to our perception and caretaking of the environment. Digital narratives, resulting from the interactions of human storytellers with algorithmic systems, have the power to change the way we think and adjust the trajectory of society. Digital narratives are computationally driven forms of storytelling that increasingly define contemporary life. From conspiracy theories spreading on social media that influence our politics, througho immersive storyworlds in video games, to AI systems generating fiction and code, digital narratives are now an unavoidable aspect of everyday life. Yet we lack a comprehensive understanding of how they work, what purposes they serve, and how they reshape culture and society. Storytelling is no longer an exclusively a human domain. Algorithmic narrativity describes the interplay between human understanding of stories and computer processes of all kinds, from analog narrative systems to generative AI models. Understanding algorithmic narrativity in its manifold forms is the core focus of all the research at the CDN. CDN provides a theoretical and practical platform for understanding digital narrative. CDN merges theory and practice in essential humanities-led research on digital narrative in electronic literature, computer games , computational narrative systems, social media and networked narratives, generative AI, extended reality, digital anthropology, digital arts and other related fields. By combining theoretical inquiry, documentation of emerging genres, database infrastructure and publishing platform development, and creative experimental research into new narrative practices, CDN is building an international hub for cutting-edge, humanities-led research. We bring together scholars, artists, and technologists to explore how digital storytelling can illuminate, challenge, and transform the way we live.

The Center for Digital Narrative (CDN) is designed to move radically beyond the state of the art to define a new, independent research field specifically focused on digital narrative. Digital narratives are new forms of storytelling driven by computation. Contemporary life is increasingly driven by digital narratives–whether anti-vax conspiracy theories proliferating on Facebook, storyworlds emerging from a computer game industry that now dwarfs other sectors of the entertainment industry, or machine learning systems that generate fiction. Yet we lack a comprehensive and cross-sectoral understanding of how digital narratives function, to what ends they are being used, and how they are shaping culture now and in the future. CDN addresses this need by developing an interdisciplinary theoretical framework for digital narrative using innovative research methods organized in five integrated nodes corresponding to our secondary objectives. CDN will merge theory and practice in essential humanities-led research on digital narrative in Electronic Literature, Computer Games and Interactive Digital Narrative, Computational Narrative Systems, Social Media and Network Narratives, and Extended Digital Narratives. The University of Bergen (UiB) is uniquely positioned for this work. Our research groups in electronic literature, digital culture, and game studies have already made foundational contributions to those fields and our PIs are at the nexus of global research networks. CDN builds upon these substantial research strengths to immediately bring Norwegian research in digital narrative to the forefront. CDN will establish Norway as a world leader in innovative humanities research and train a new generation of humanities researchers who will be ready to address future challenges. CDN will deepen our knowledge of how digital technologies impact one of the most fundamental human activities: how we tell the stories that shape our lives and understanding of the world.