“Hearing Ordinary Voices: Cultural Studies, Vernacular Creativity and Digital Storytelling” by Jean Burgess: Summary and Critique

“Hearing Ordinary Voices: Cultural Studies, Vernacular Creativity and Digital Storytelling” by Jean Burgess first appeared in the Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies in 2006 (Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 201–214), and was published online on January 19, 2007, by Routledge.

"Hearing Ordinary Voices: Cultural Studies, Vernacular Creativity and Digital Storytelling" by Jean Burgess: Summary and Critique
Introduction: “Hearing Ordinary Voices: Cultural Studies, Vernacular Creativity and Digital Storytelling” by Jean Burgess

“Hearing Ordinary Voices: Cultural Studies, Vernacular Creativity and Digital Storytelling” by Jean Burgess first appeared in the Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies in 2006 (Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 201–214), and was published online on January 19, 2007, by Routledge. As a pivotal contribution to cultural studies and media theory, the article explores how digital storytelling—a form where ordinary people produce short autobiographical films—redefines participation, creativity, and agency in the age of networked media. Burgess critiques celebratory narratives of user empowerment and “creative consumers,” arguing instead for a more grounded approach centered on vernacular creativity: creative practices that emerge from non-elite, everyday cultural contexts. This notion challenges the elitist dichotomy between high art and amateur production and emphasizes the dignity and affective power of ordinary voices. Situating digital storytelling as both a media form and a site of democratic participation, Burgess bridges critical theory with participatory practice, revealing how affective presence, sincerity, and self-representation reshape the politics of voice, access, and cultural legitimacy in new media. Her work continues to resonate in literary theory and cultural studies for its call to “listen” rather than theorize over the everyday stories that lie at the margins of dominant cultural production.

Summary of “Hearing Ordinary Voices: Cultural Studies, Vernacular Creativity and Digital Storytelling” by Jean Burgess

🎤 🌍 Amplifying the Ordinary Voice: A Cultural Studies Imperative

Jean Burgess opens by affirming that cultural studies must engage seriously with everyday or amateur media production, particularly as digital tools allow ordinary individuals to express themselves (Burgess, 2006, p. 201). She notes that these expressions, often dismissed as marginal or trivial, are deeply political and cultural acts:
🔹 “Recent developments in the uses of new media have ethical and methodological implications for cultural studies” (p. 201).


💻 🎨 Vernacular Creativity: Redefining Cultural Production

Burgess introduces vernacular creativity as a concept that describes how people remix everyday language and cultural forms into creative expressions rooted in non-elite, lived experience.
🔹 She states that it “illuminates creative practices that emerge from highly particular and non-elite social contexts” (p. 206).
🔹 Unlike elitist definitions of creativity, this perspective centers on “recombining available cultural resources in ways that are both familiar and innovative” (p. 206).


📸 🌀 Cultural Participation vs. Commodification

While the rise of user-generated content and blogging may suggest empowerment, Burgess is cautious. She critiques overly celebratory views that digital tools alone ensure democracy.
🔹 She writes, “The mere fact of productivity in itself is not sufficient grounds for celebration… we must also ask ‘who is heard, and to what end?'” (p. 203).
🔹 Platforms like lomography and camgirls are explored as aestheticized spaces that may look subversive but often reinforce capitalist structures (p. 204).


📢 🌈 Digital Storytelling: Participatory, Personal, Powerful

Burgess explores digital storytelling—short, autobiographical video stories—as an example of vernacular creativity in action. Unlike mainstream media, these stories highlight personal experiences with sincerity and warmth.
🔹 She asserts that digital stories allow for “relatively autonomous and worthwhile contributions to public culture” (p. 207).
🔹 Their power lies not in technical sophistication, but in how they “prioritize narrative accessibility, warmth, and presence” (p. 207).


🧑🎓 👂 Listening to, Not Interpreting Over, Ordinary Voices

Cultural studies, Burgess argues, must stop speaking over people and start listening.
🔹 Referring to Jenny’s story—a young mother who found new purpose through education—Burgess writes, “When I stop and look at where my life is today, I know they were wrong” (p. 208), showing how personal narrative can challenge social stigmas.
🔹 Burgess critiques theorists who reduce people to symbolic texts: “Too often, ‘the people’ are reduced to ‘the textually delegated, allegorical emblem of the critic’s own activity'” (Morris, 1990, p. 23; cited on p. 209).


🧵 💞 Emotional Authenticity: The ‘I-Voice’ of Digital Stories

Digital storytelling emphasizes the voice—literally—as central to authenticity and empathy.
🔹 Burgess uses Chion’s concept of the “I-voice”—a voice both deeply internal and universally present—as a metaphor for this form’s affective power (Chion, 1990, p. 79; cited on p. 210).
🔹 These stories “recapture the warmth of human intimacy from the imperative of innovation” (p. 210).


🎓 📚 Everyday Literacies as Cultural Capital

Digital storytelling is built on vernacular literacies, not formal artistic training.
🔹 Participants use intuitive skills like “scrapbooking, storytelling, arranging photos, and layering voiceovers” learned from daily life (p. 209).
🔹 These literacies bridge “formal and informal learning”, fostering confidence among marginalized voices (p. 209).


📈 📡 Democratization Without Illusion

Though digital storytelling opens access, Burgess remains aware of its limits. Institutional control and stylistic norms can shape and constrain these stories.
🔹 She acknowledges, “Distribution channels… are frequently under the control of the institutions that provided the workshops” (p. 209).
🔹 Yet, for many, “without additional support, they may never use a computer at all” (p. 209), underscoring the critical importance of support infrastructures.


💬 🫂 Universal Themes, Specific Lives

Burgess concludes that while digital stories may use universal themes—love, hope, loss—their particularity is what makes them powerful.
🔹 These stories offer “a means of ‘becoming real’ to others, on the basis of shared experience and affective resonances” (Peters, 1999, p. 225; cited on p. 210).
🔹 “If we are working within a politics of participation, we need to learn to listen to these autobiographical narratives” (p. 211).


🔚 🎯 Final Reflection: A Call for Cultural Empathy

Ultimately, Burgess insists that cultural studies must shift from interpreting to supporting and amplifying the voices of those previously unheard.
🔹 “The task for cultural studies is not to speak heroically on behalf of ordinary voices but to find ways to understand and practically engage with the full diversity… in which they are, or are not, being heard” (p. 211).


Theoretical Terms/Concepts in “Hearing Ordinary Voices: Cultural Studies, Vernacular Creativity and Digital Storytelling” by Jean Burgess
🌈 Concept / Term📖 Definition / Explanation🔗 Reference in Article
🗣️ Vernacular CreativityDescribes creative practices emerging from non-elite, everyday contexts using local, familiar cultural codes. Challenges high-culture notions of creativity.“Creative practices that emerge from highly particular and non-elite social contexts” (p. 206)
🧑‍🎤 Creative ConsumerA figure associated with the participatory media landscape who not only consumes but also creates, reshaping media culture.“The figure of the ‘creative consumer’… is seen as both a key to the new economy…” (p. 201)
🌐 Digital StorytellingA participatory media form where ordinary people create short autobiographical films using digital tools.“A workshop-based process by which ‘ordinary people’ create their own short autobiographical films…” (p. 207)
🧩 Democratization of TechnologyThe idea that access to media tools empowers ordinary users; critiqued for assuming equality where structural barriers still exist.“We must also ask ‘who is heard, and to what end?'” (p. 203)
🔄 RemediationTransformation of older media or everyday storytelling practices into new media forms like digital storytelling.“Digital storytelling… works to remediate vernacular creativity…” (p. 209)
🎧 I-Voice (Chion)A cinematic/audiovisual term denoting a voiceover that is intimate and emotionally powerful, representing both the speaker and listener’s inner voice.“It is both completely internal and invading the entire universe…” (p. 210)
🎭 Demoticization (vs. Democratization)Turner’s critique that increased visibility of ordinary people in media doesn’t shift power, but integrates them into celebrity culture.“Represents not the ‘democratization’ but the ‘demoticization’ of the media” (p. 203)
🧠 Active AudienceA foundational cultural studies idea that audiences are not passive but interpret and even co-create meaning in media consumption.“The ‘active audience’ is now both a fact and a commercial imperative” (p. 202)
📚 Vernacular Theory (McLaughlin)Frameworks of knowledge and interpretation emerging from everyday people rather than institutional elites.“Challenging cultural studies to recognize… knowledges of non-elite cultures” (p. 206)
🧵 Empathy in Cultural StudiesA methodological and ethical commitment to listening to and valuing ordinary voices rather than speaking over or analyzing them reductively.“A commitment to empathy and respect for the ‘ordinary’ or ‘popular’ cultural formations” (p. 206)
🖼️ Aestheticized EverydayThe idea that even mundane, amateur forms (e.g., lomography) can be stylized and commodified, often losing their radical edge.“A fetishized and aestheticized version of everyday life” (p. 205)
🧮 Cultural Value ChainThe shift in meaning-making from producers to consumers; cultural value now flows through consumer interpretation and remix practices.“Cultural value… shifted from cultural elites… to cultural consumers” (p. 202)
✏️ Narrative AccessibilityA key principle of digital storytelling: stories are structured for emotional clarity and ease of understanding, emphasizing sincerity over complexity.“Narrative accessibility, warmth, and presence are prioritized” (p. 207)
🧱 Institutional MediationRecognition that digital storytelling often occurs within structured environments (like workshops), which shape and sometimes limit expression.“Distribution channels… frequently under the control of the institutions…” (p. 209)
Contribution of “Hearing Ordinary Voices: Cultural Studies, Vernacular Creativity and Digital Storytelling” by Jean Burgess to Literary Theory/Theories

🔍 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Reader-Response Theory
Contribution: Burgess amplifies the reader’s role as co-creator in the digital age, aligning with reader-response theory’s emphasis on interpretation and subjectivity.
🔹 She highlights how “cultural value… has shifted from cultural elites… to cultural consumers” (p. 202), reinforcing the idea that meaning is made in reception, not just in production.
🔹 In digital storytelling, the affective power of the voice (“I-voice”) invites identification, making the audience an emotional participant (p. 210).


💬 📖 Narrative Theory / Autobiographical Theory
Contribution: Digital storytelling introduces a new, vernacular form of life writing, expanding the boundaries of autobiographical narrative beyond literary or elite spaces.
🔹 “The personal narrative, told in the storyteller’s unique voice, is central… and is given priority” (p. 207).
🔹 Stories like Jenny’s reflect not only personal growth but also identity construction through narrative (p. 208).


🎙️ 📢 Poststructuralism & the Death of the Author (Barthes)
Contribution: Burgess complicates Barthes’s notion of the “death of the author” by returning to the affective presence of the speaker, especially through the intimate “I-voice.”
🔹 Rather than eliminating the author, digital storytelling repersonalizes authorship in non-elite forms: “the voice the spectator internalises as his or her own” (p. 210).


🏘️ 🌍 Cultural Materialism / New Historicism
Contribution: The article ties everyday creativity to social and economic contexts, grounding narrative in material realities (e.g., digital access, community workshops).
🔹 “Distribution channels… are frequently under the control of institutions” (p. 209), showing how material conditions shape literary/cultural output.
🔹 Minna’s and Jenny’s stories are rooted in socio-historical specificity—WWII and contemporary motherhood—underscoring how life context informs narrative production (pp. 208–210).


🧩 💡 Structuralism & Genre Theory
Contribution: Burgess identifies how digital stories remix genre conventions (photo albums, scrapbooking, oral storytelling), forming hybrid narrative structures.
🔹 She emphasizes “the recombination of familiar genre conventions and shared knowledges” (p. 206) as central to vernacular creativity.
🔹 The narrative economy of digital stories—250-word scripts, 12 images—acts as a structure of constraint and meaning (p. 207).


🧶 ❤️ Affect Theory
Contribution: One of the most important interventions is in showing how affective resonance—not intellectual analysis—is the key to understanding digital storytelling.
🔹 Stories are “sincere, warm, and human” (p. 208), and the “I-voice” creates an embodied experience of voice and presence.
🔹 “The digital story is a means of ‘becoming real’ to others… based on shared experience and affective resonances” (p. 210).


🗺️ 🧠 Feminist Literary Theory
Contribution: Through Jenny’s narrative and Burgess’s refusal to pathologize “ordinary” femininity, the article contributes to feminist concerns of agency, motherhood, and narrative voice.
🔹 “Becoming a mother has created opportunities rather than closing them off” (p. 208), challenging dominant scripts around reproduction and female identity.
🔹 Burgess resists reducing ordinary women’s stories to ideological critique, aligning with feminist aims of validating lived experiences.


🎮 🕹️ Media Theory & Multimodality
Contribution: Burgess bridges literary theory with media theory, showing how multimodal texts (voice, image, music) reshape narrative form.
🔹 “Remediation of vernacular creativity through digital tools transforms everyday experience into public culture” (p. 209).
🔹 This broadens the field of literary narrative to include hybrid, multimodal expressions.


📢 Summary of Impact
Jean Burgess’s article provides a critical bridge between traditional literary theory and emerging digital storytelling practices, emphasizing:
✔️ Empathy and emotion over formal complexity
✔️ Non-elite authorship as legitimate cultural production
✔️ Everyday narrative as both affective and political

She reconfigures how literary studies can engage with contemporary, multimedia, vernacular forms—not just as texts to analyze but as voices to hear.


Examples of Critiques Through “Hearing Ordinary Voices: Cultural Studies, Vernacular Creativity and Digital Storytelling” by Jean Burgess

🌟 Literary Work🧠 Critique Through Burgess’s Lens📌 Key Concept from Burgess
📖 “The Color Purple” by Alice WalkerThis epistolary novel, told in Celie’s own voice, aligns with Burgess’s emphasis on affective authenticity and everyday vernacular voice. It privileges the emotional and linguistic world of an ordinary, Black woman in the rural South—what Burgess calls a form of “vernacular creativity” (p. 206). The narrative challenges elitist aesthetics through its sincerity and intimacy.🗣️ Vernacular Creativity & I-Voice (pp. 206, 210)
🕯️ “Mrs. Dalloway” by Virginia WoolfBurgess’s idea of remediating everyday life (p. 209) can be used to re-read Woolf’s stream-of-consciousness style as an early literary attempt to give dignity to ordinary voices and interiorities. Clarissa’s walk through London becomes a digital story in prose, capturing affective resonances of the mundane, much like digital storytelling captures lived moments.💞 Everyday Life as Creative Field (p. 203)
💌 “Persepolis” by Marjane SatrapiAs a graphic memoir, Persepolis embodies Burgess’s concept of multimodal vernacular storytelling—blending visuals and personal narrative for public discourse. Like digital stories, it uses accessible aesthetics and personal voice to engage with cultural memory and political identity (p. 207). It challenges elitist literary forms through its emotive directness.🎨 Multimodality & Participatory Authorship (p. 209)
🎮 “Ready Player One” by Ernest ClineWhile the novel celebrates user-driven digital culture, Burgess’s critique warns us of conflating interactivity with equality. The novel privileges tech-savvy, nostalgic subcultural capital—limiting who is “heard” in this imagined participatory world (p. 203). It exemplifies how “ordinary creativity” can still replicate exclusivity and commercial logic.⚠️ Democratization vs. Demoticization (p. 203)

Summary Insight:

Burgess’s work helps us re-evaluate literature not only by what is said, but who gets to speak, how they are heard, and under what technological and cultural conditions. From Persepolis to Mrs. Dalloway, her ideas reposition emotional storytelling, non-elite narratives, and affective presence as central literary values, not peripheral ones.

Criticism Against “Hearing Ordinary Voices: Cultural Studies, Vernacular Creativity and Digital Storytelling” by Jean Burgess

Romanticization of the “Ordinary”
➡ Burgess risks idealizing vernacular expression, potentially overlooking how “ordinary voices” can also perpetuate dominant ideologies, prejudices, or stereotypes.

Even though she critiques celebratory populism, her framing often valorizes sincerity and emotion without always questioning content or ideology (p. 208).


🔹 🏗️ Institutional Mediation is Underplayed
➡ While she acknowledges the role of institutions (e.g., BBC, QUT), critics may argue that she underestimates how institutional contexts shape and limit “authentic” storytelling.

The curated nature of digital storytelling workshops may normalize certain narrative templates, leading to homogeneity (p. 209).


🔸 📊 Limited Structural Critique of Power
➡ Burgess focuses on representation and affect, but critics from Marxist or critical theory backgrounds might say she offers an insufficient critique of material inequality or systemic barriers.

Who gets access to technology, training, or platforms remains a major structural issue underexplored in her celebratory tone.


🔹 🧠 Under-theorization of Digital Literacy Gaps
➡ The assumption that digital storytelling is “empowering” may ignore deep differences in digital competence due to education, age, language, or socio-economic status.

Even with workshop support, not everyone can meaningfully participate—a fact that complicates the democratic framing (p. 208–209).


🔸 🎨 Emotional Appeal Over Analytical Depth
➡ By emphasizing “warmth, sincerity, and affect” (p. 208), Burgess may be overlooking narrative complexity or literary experimentation, potentially sidelining stories that don’t conform to her affective model.


🔹 🎢 Risk of Essentializing “Authentic” Expression
➡ What counts as “authentic” or “vernacular” is culturally coded and potentially exclusionary.

There’s a danger of privileging certain emotional styles (e.g., sentimental storytelling) as more legitimate, silencing others that are ironic, fragmented, or culturally divergent.


🔸 📹 Lack of Engagement with Algorithmic Mediation
➡ The piece does not consider how algorithms shape visibility, relevance, or virality of digital content—critical in today’s participatory culture where “being heard” is highly platform-dependent.


🔹 🔁 Repetition of Cultural Studies Debates
➡ Some may argue that Burgess revisits long-standing cultural studies debates (e.g., agency vs. structure, resistance vs. co-option) without significantly advancing them, even as she brings them into digital context.


🧩 Summary Takeaway:

While Jean Burgess’s article is visionary in championing everyday creativity and emotional storytelling, it can be critiqued for idealism, institutional blind spots, and limited engagement with power structures and digital inequalities.


Representative Quotations from “Hearing Ordinary Voices: Cultural Studies, Vernacular Creativity and Digital Storytelling” by Jean Burgess with Explanation

📝 Quotation (with Symbol)💬 Explanation
🎙️ “Digital storytelling… aims not only to remediate vernacular creativity but also to legitimate it as a worthwhile contribution to public culture.” (p. 207)Emphasizes the shift from private, everyday expression to public cultural recognition, a major theme of the article.
🧠 “Creativity is the process by which available cultural resources… are recombined in novel ways.” (p. 206)Redefines creativity in a non-elitist, participatory way, moving beyond traditional, high-art frameworks.
🗣️ “What we are looking at when we look at a digital story is something that sits uncomfortably with both our celebrations and ideological critiques of ‘popular culture’.” (p. 208)Shows how digital storytelling resists simplistic categorization, calling for nuanced critical approaches.
❤️ “Stories are in general marked by their sincerity, warmth, and humanity.” (p. 208)Reflects the affective tone of digital stories and their value outside irony or avant-garde formalism.
📢 “The question we ask about ‘democratic’ media participation can no longer be limited to ‘who gets to speak?’ We must also ask ‘who is heard, and to what end?'” (p. 203)Challenges superficial views of access and participation by emphasizing audibility and impact.
🛠️ “The personal narrative, told in the storyteller’s unique voice, is central… and is given priority.” (p. 207)Asserts the centrality of voice and personal experience as valid cultural contributions.
🔍 “Cultural studies… has been ‘shaped as a response to the social uptake of communications technologies.'” (p. 202)Positions cultural studies as inherently reactive and adaptive to technological change, especially in media.
🌐 “We now must understand cultural production to be part of everyday life in a much more literal sense.” (p. 202)Marks a paradigm shift where culture isn’t just consumed—it’s constantly produced by users in daily life.
💡 “Vernacular creativity… includes as part of the contemporary vernacular the experience of commercial popular culture.” (p. 206)Blurs the line between folk and mass culture, embracing hybrid creative forms.
🔊 “The digital story is a means of ‘becoming real’ to others, on the basis of shared experience and affective resonances.” (p. 210)Underscores the intimate and connective power of storytelling in public digital spaces.
Suggested Readings: “Hearing Ordinary Voices: Cultural Studies, Vernacular Creativity and Digital Storytelling” by Jean Burgess
  1. Burgess, Jean. “Hearing ordinary voices: Cultural studies, vernacular creativity and digital storytelling.” Continuum 20.2 (2006): 201-214.
  2. Di Blas, Nicoletta. “Authentic Learning, Creativity and Collaborative Digital Storytelling: Lessons from a Large-Scale Case-Study.” Educational Technology & Society, vol. 25, no. 2, 2022, pp. 80–104. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/48660126. Accessed 6 Apr. 2025.
  3. Anderson, Kate T., and Puay Hoe Chua. “Digital Storytelling as an Interactive Digital Media Context.” Educational Technology, vol. 50, no. 5, 2010, pp. 32–36. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44429857. Accessed 6 Apr. 2025.
  4. Michael Wilson. “‘Another Fine Mess’: The Condition of Storytelling in the Digital Age.” Narrative Culture, vol. 1, no. 2, 2014, pp. 125–44. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.13110/narrcult.1.2.0125. Accessed 6 Apr. 2025.

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