Digital Storytelling and Cultural Sustainability in the Digital Platform Era: A Systematic Literature Review and Thematic Synthesis

Digital storytelling is by now a familiar feature of tourism and heritage practice, yet much of the literature writes about the surrounding digital environment as though it were itself the narrative. The present review examines that slippage, and asks a narrower question: under what conditions, and in what ways, does digitally mediated narrative connect with cultural sustainability? English-language peer-reviewed articles and reviews, published between January 2016 and 8 August 2026, were drawn from the Web of Science Core Collection and ScienceDirect, and the reporting follows PRISMA 2020. In total, 89 studies entered the final corpus: 34 as Core narrative evidence and 55 as Contextual evidence on adjacent mechanisms or conditions. Four analytical domains came out of the thematic synthesis: cultural memory and transmission; immersive interpretation and visitor meaning-making; participation, co-creation and cultural agency; and enabling digital infrastructure and sustainability conditions. Proximal outcomes such as engagement, learning, access and experience are covered far more fully than longitudinal cultural continuity, and the difference matters. Preservation is not continuity, engagement is not sustainability, participation is not agency, and technical sophistication is not a narrative mechanism. What the review puts forward is a relational, evidence-calibrated framework rather than a causal model. The link to cultural sustainability, it argues, is most plausible when meanings remain interpretable and renewable, when cultural actors retain meaningful authority, and when the socio-technical systems carrying the stories remain durable. Review-derived interpretations and analytical distinctions are gathered in the framework to guide future research; it claims neither pooled effects nor validated causal pathways.