Digitalization and the transformation of Mao Naga oral traditions in the 21st century: From Morung to social media

The transformation of indigenous oral traditions under digital conditions has become an increasingly urgent area of inquiry within folklore studies and digital anthropology. This article examines the case of the Mao Naga community of Manipur, whose storytelling practices were historically transmitted within the Morung, a youth dormitory that functioned as a pedagogical, ritual, and communal institution. Drawing upon qualitative interviews and digital ethnography, this study investigates how Mao oral traditions are being reshaped through digital platforms such as Facebook and YouTube. It focuses on three interrelated processes: the spatial and performative shift from Morung-based storytelling to online mediation; the active role of youth in documenting, editing, and circulating folklore; and the transformation of narrative authority and authenticity under conditions of digital archiving and algorithmic visibility. The findings demonstrate that digitalization does not signify the erosion of tradition but its structural reconfiguration. Storytelling moves from embodied co-presence to mediated circulation, authority becomes dialogically negotiated rather than exclusively hierarchical, and variation encounters new tensions through technological fixity. By situating the Mao case within broader theoretical debates on performance, variation, and networked publics, this article argues that indigenous oral traditions adapt not by resisting digital modernity but by selectively incorporating it. The study contributes to high-impact discussions on cultural continuity, technological mediation, and indigenous knowledge systems in the twenty-first century.