Digital Storytelling in Health and Social Policy

Nicole Matthews lectures in media and cultural studies at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia after having taught at universities in the United Kingdom (UK) for over a decade. In the early 2000s she began writing about the early uses of autobiographical video on broadcast TV, from Video Nation to You've Been Framed! Since then, she has been part of a number of collaborative research projects exploring the way that people use visual and electronic media to tell stories drawing on their own life experience. This work has included research on the way young Deaf people use video for storytelling and searching the web, and the evaluation of a UK project run by disability charity Scope which brought together stories written for very young children by disabled people and their families with illustrations and animations by art, multimedia, and design students. As well as her long-standing interest in auto/biographical media, Nicole has published on popular genres of print, broadcast, and electronic media and the politics and practice of higher education.

Naomi Sunderland lectures in the School of Human Services and Social Work and is an active member of the Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre and Menzies Health Institute Queensland at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. Naomi has an extensive background in participatory, creative, and community-based research in the areas of health, well-being, and arts-based community development. She has collaborated on many storytelling and health-related research projects including: the 1000 Voices Disability Life Stories project; a social determinants of health evaluation of the Scattered People asylum seekers and refugee music group; the Sensory-Ethnography of Logan-Beaudesert project; and a participatory intercultural evaluation of multi-arts work with Barkly Regional Arts in the Northern Territory. Naomi teaches in the First Australians and Social Justice team at Griffith University and specialises in topics around transformative intercultural and immersive education, equity, and diversity. Naomi has a PhD in applied ethics and human rights from the Queensland University of Technology. She has worked in government and non-government organisations and universities in Canada and Australia. She has published widely on the topics of health promotion partnerships, music and well-being, disability and happiness, and transformative ethics. Naomi is also an active singer, songwriter, and performer, and has released several albums of work internationally.