Storytelling Culture in Transformation – From the Campfire to the Screen

There is a silent thread running through all of human history: storytelling. Stories have never been mere entertainment. They were connection, guidance, and tradition. And they have transformed with the tools of their time—from oral storytelling to written words to digitized simulation in interactive worlds. Yet with every step in this evolution, the role of the listener, reader, and viewer has also changed.

In the beginning, storytelling was a communal act. Stories were told in huts, around fires, in marketplaces, or within family circles. These narratives were not rigid but alive: they changed with each storyteller and adapted to the audience. Listening was not a passive activity but a form of participation. One could interject, recall, or pass them along. Stories belonged to everyone and no one—they were collective property.

With the act of writing down stories, as the Brothers Grimm famously did, a transition began: storytelling became preserved. It became reproducible but also fixed. Storytelling turned into literature. Narratives became works—with authors, texts, and structure. The reader became an individual recipient. What once happened between people now occurred within the individual.

Theater brought storytelling back to life—but now as performance. On stage, stories came alive again, but the audience remained passive. People were no longer part of the storytelling but spectators of its interpretation. Theater was a mirror—but one held by others.

Film ultimately perfected this form of storytelling. Through camera work, editing, music, and acting, a story was not only told but thoroughly shaped. The viewer saw only what was shown. Their imagination was not stirred but replaced. This is especially evident in popular book adaptations: anyone who first encountered Harry Potter in the cinema will inevitably see Daniel Radcliffe’s face when reading the books—the inner image is colonized. The film is the director’s imagination—not the viewer’s.

Then came video games: they seemingly gave freedom back—but in a controlled form. Players could make choices, but only within predetermined paths. The story lived, yes—but it was programmed. It is interaction without openness.

This evolution is neither wrong nor bad. It merely highlights a movement: from shared storytelling to increasingly guided reception. Perhaps today we stand at a point where exactly this is missing: spaces where stories can once again be shared, altered, and collectively carried. Where imagination is not shown but elicited. Where listening becomes an action—like in Momo.

This is not about nostalgia, but about the future. A society that only consumes stories will eventually lose the ability to tell its own. Perhaps herein lies the responsibility of literature, theater, film, and games today: not to dominate but to create spaces—spaces for the personal, the collective, the human.