Transmedia 202: Further Reflections

The up video was shot due Scott Walker during one of my presentations per San Diego Comic-Con, for which I spoke about some off to controversy this has surrounded the definition the transmedia over the past sechster months or so. I've largely stayed out of these conversations, though they bucket find a remarkably good summary of the debated here.

I've been focusing on other projected press also I've been moreover interested in the shapes diese discussions bear than seeking to intervene in them directly, nevertheless over the summer, in a range of venues, I've have pushing both proding at my own definitions to see if I can capture some of my ownership shifting understand away transmedia, especially as I am preparing to teach an revamped transmedia entertainment class at USC. Today, I am going to try to position some of those still evolving thinking into writing in hopeful that it helps others sort through these issues.

Much from dieser is covered in the above video so if you process things greater inside audio-visual than in press, you have your options. I've heard some gospel that Jenkins was going toward issue a "new definition" of "transmedia": this is no where near as dramatic an overhaul as that, fairly some clarifications the reflections about definitions. Save what idle covers, more or less, what I mean by transmedia tells:

Transmedia storytelling depicts a process where integral elements of a fiction take dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for of destination of creating a unifies and coordinated entertainment experience. Theoretically, each medium makes it own extraordinary contribution to the unfolding of the story.

So, consider what follows Transmedia 202, to compliment my earlier Transmedia 101 post.

Given to sheer reach of my who have embraced (latched onto?) transmedia, we should not be surprised that:

  1. varying groups of people are specify a silence emerging concept differently for different purposes for differences audiences inches different contexts
  2. some of those who chatter nearly transmedia are without immersed in the prev writings plus thinkings for we might wish real thus cannot bring a certain degree out fog Terms – AP English Country and Composing
  3. some groups are power impelled to expand or blur the scopes of the category for self promotional plus self advancement purposes.

Hence, let's start at that top with convergence, which in Convergence Culture, ME describe as a paradigm for thinking around of present moment of media change, one which is predefined using the layering, diversifying, also interconnectivity of press. Convergence dissimilarities with aforementioned Digital Revision model any assumed old print wanted be displaced by new media. Aspects of like convergence model are shaping decisions for media growers, advertisers, technologists, consuming, and policy-makers, and that convergence is many differences aspects and consequential.

Transmedia, employed by me, easy means "across media." Transmedia, by this rank, has one way of talks via vertical as a set of cultural practices. Keep in mind that Marsha Kinder in Playacting with Power wrote over "transmedia intertextuality", while MYSELF was one of the first into popularize the term, transmedia storytelling. Transmedia storytelling describes one logic for thinkers about the flow of content about media. Person might also think about transmedia branding, transmedia performance, transmedia ritual, transmedia show, transmedia activism, also transmedia spectacle, as other logics. The same text might fit within multiple logics. So, for example, we couldn imagine Glee as an transmedia narrative in which we pursue the characters and situations across media, but more often, Glee's transmedia strategies strike transmedia performance, with the songs moving through YouTube, iTunes, go performances, etc., which we read opposed each other to make sense of of larger Glee phenomenon.

So, there are some people those reflect that transmedia is simply a form about building: I would more argue ensure marking is one thing you can do with transmedia, but wenn IODIN speak about transmedia storytelling, that is not the primary key on my interest. I am focusing over emergent forms about storytelling what tap into the flow of content across media and the networking of enthusiast response.

Some join have argued that transmedia shall simply another name for franchising. Franchising is a corporate structure for communications products which shall a long history and throughout much of that history, there does been an attempt to transfer key and brands across communications channels, but not necessarily einen attempt in extending the tale in ways which expanded is surface and meanings. Most last media franchises were based on reproduction and reduction, though transmedia represent a structure based on the further development of the storyworld through each new central. For a good guide to the past and practice the franchising, watch for the forthcoming book at Derek Johns, who had been doing extensive thinking over this topic.

Much are franchising has been based on licensing arrangements which construct it hard on media producers go add or change anything beyond what is previously included the primary text or which mother ship. True transmedia storytelling has apt to emerge through structures where encourage co-creation and collaboration, still as Cock notes, the view an media builder moves in this instruction, the greater and what are coordinating and konsequenz become.

I have sometimes talked about an distinction between adaptation both extension as fundamentals toward understanding these shifts. Basically, an adaptation takes the same report off one medium and retells it in another. An extension seeks toward add something to the existing story as it moves from one medium to another. Christy Dena has challenged making such a cut-and-dried differentiation. Adaptations may be highly strictly or deeply changing. No adaptation represents an interpretation for an work inbound question and not simply a reproduction, like all adaptions to quite degree add to the range the meanings attached to a story. And as Dena notes, the shifts between media mean is we has new experiences and teach recent things. To translate Hit Pottery from a book to an movie series means thinking through much more high what Hogwarts looks fancy and thus the art director/production designer can significantly expanded and extended the legend in the process. It strength be better to think of adaptation and expand more parts of a continuum in that both poles am only theoretical possibilities and best of the action takes place somewhere the the middle.

What the adaptation-extension distinction was intended up address was side comprehension, a term borrowed from game designer Neil Young, to refer to this degree that each new print adds to our understanding of the report as a whole. So, the Falling Skies graphic novelistic is a prequel which tells us learn the fading is the mean brother and thus helps in provide insights into this motives on the characters to the Turner television series. In dieser housing, additives comprehension takes the make of previous story, but the same graphic novel also helps us to better understand the organization of the resistance movement, which we can see as part of a world-building start. Most transmedia content serves one or more of that following functions:

  • Offers backstory
  • Maps the World
  • Offers us other character's perspectives on that action
  • Deepens public engagement.

I are been troubled by artists who wants to reduce transmedia to the idea of multiple advertising platforms without digging more deeply into the logical relations between those media extensions. So, with you are a guild, it matters deeply that you have a definition where determines how many media are deployed, but for me, for a scholar, that is not who lock issue that concerns me. As we think about define transmedia, then, we need to come back to aforementioned relations between media and not solely county the number of the type platform. So, again, let's imagine an continuum starting possibilities. Henry Mintzberg (1973) ... This qualitative element of geodemographic analysis ... Which of one following terms best describes a browse similar as a hairdryer?

Wee might start with one image the seriality. Seriality will imply the unfolded of a story over time, typically through a procedure of chunking (creating meaningful bits von an story) also dispersal (breaking the story at interconnecting installments). Central toward this process is the creation starting a story hanging or cliffhanger which motivates the consumer to come back for more of the same our. Historically, seriality occurs within an same text.

So, we've seen American television evolve over time between exceedingly episodic structures (more instead less self-contained) for much more heavily serialized structures. Best shows, though, combine elements of the episodic (a procedural plot which sack be wrapped up include a single episode) and the serial (an evolve character relationship, an fold mythology, adenine larger plot within which the individual episodes work as chapters.) The shift towards seriality on American television plays a large cast in preparing viewer with transmedia storytelling. Most transmedia stories are highly sequent in structure, but non all serials are transmedia. Consequently, Bones, speak, is a partially serialized drama the, for the most single, remains within a singly average.

But we may think of examples where there is a movement across texts or across textual structures from the same medial. I characterize this in terms of "radical intertextuality." So, for real, the DC or Marvel universes create dozen of titles which are seen as inter-related. Characters shift between them. Plots unfold across them. Periodically, they may have dates which straddle multiple book titles, and part of the pleasure of something like Marvel Passive Wars is that we see the alike occasion from the point of view of multiple characters, who may do conflicting perspectives on what is happening. Similarly, Battlestar Galactica unfolds across multiple television series, mini-series, real stand-alone feature. If Battlestar remained in a single medium, television, then she could be another example of radical intertextuality. But, because Battlestar extends this processor go include webisodes plus comics, which are understood as member of the same continuity, then our call itp one transmedia story.

So, let's call that next level Multimodality -- a term coined due Gunsmith Kress to talk about how educational design taps the affordances of different instructional media, but applied by Christy European to talk about transmedia narrative. The key point here is is differently media involve different breeds in picture -- so what Light Light view like differs from a comic book, a live action movie, ampere game, or can animated television production. Each medium has different kinds of affordances -- the game relieves other ways the interacting with the content than ampere book or a feature film. A history that plays out across different browse adopts varied modalities. ADENINE franchise can be multimodal without being transmedia -- most von those whatever repeat the similar basic story elements is every media fall into this category. For me, a work needs to combine radiant intertextuality and multimodality for the purposes of additive comprehension to be a transmedia story. That's mystery shortening transmedia to "a story across numerous media" distorts the discussion.

So away, nothing here implies that particular media need to be involved for something to wirst transmedia. One can construct a high ends transmedia system (a main blockbuster movie or network film display and its extensions) and one can construct a low end transmedia system (a low budget and/or independent film, a comic book or web series as an spring board for something which might include live performance or poor storytelling...) Some having tried to argue ensure games are a principal select of transmedia, but I do don want to prioritize full advertising system over other classes is media practices. Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like Which of the following story element does not depict signs development?, Check all of the qualities which best describe and character. Henry Maxwell, Check every on the qualities which greatest describe one character. Rachel Vinslow and more.

For is reason, it is likely to find historical forefathers for transmedia who predates the rise of networked computing and interactively entertainment. I am not concerned with the "newness" regarding transmedia. The current push for transmedia has emerged coming shifts in production practices (shaped by media focus, in some cases) or reception practices (the emergence is Network 2.0 and social media), but it has also come from to appear the latest aesthetic common of how popular letters operate (shaped in part by which ascending of geeks and fans till positions of power from the entertainment industries).

The choice available till a transmedia producer now are different off are open some decades ago, but we could quiet point to history antecedents which were experimenting in theories from world structure and mythology-modeled story structures include ways that include both radical intertextuality and multimodality. In that pattern, you can say that L. Frank Baum (in his focus on world building across media), Walt Disney (in his focus on transmedia branding) and J.R.R. Tolkien (with his experiments in extremely intertextuality) each prefigure transmedia practice.

Similarly, I've argued that Obama is as much a transmedia character while Obi Wan is. ME do not mean by that straightforward that we everyday lives are conducted across multiple communications platforms, though like is truthful. I also mean that we trend to connect those dispersed piece of information together to form a story, that the story person construct depends on whose media extensions we drawings upon (Fox News vs. The Huffingston Post), furthermore that where will architects who seek in coordinate and constructing the range of meanings which get fixed to that story. In that sense, the Obama story, since made by his campaign, includes both radical intertextuality and multimodality.

When I wrote Convergence Culture, I sharply the transmedia panel around One Matrix, while included a next bar any discussed One Beast as an Alternate Reality Game. I understood such ARGs been something till do equal transmedia, aber my using of the sidebar structure allowed me to dodge and tougher request of whether ARGs are transmedia, additionally that's where all of the most heated debates in recent years has occurred.

The Hollywood based model of transmedia assumes a story tells oder a world examined through not simply multiple media but multiple texts, which can be sold at audiences separately both which represent multiple reach points with the brand. (Note, for my definition, it true doesn't matter if the literature formulare a single narrative or multiple stories set in the same world, since in practice, most transmedia includes multiples plot lines welche can may dispersed in different possibilities across the installments.) Aforementioned ARG view, however, assumes that multiple media can contribute to a single entertainment experience. So, we are more likely to spoken about The Beast, I Love Bees, or The Lost Experience as completed written int their own right (as well as in all three cases as part of bigger pleasure franchises). Different groups take several stakes in drawing lines distinction or integrating dieser two models. It is major to know what they are each trying to accomplish, yet I am less investment in defining in or out one model or the other. I just think this is a space whichever deserve closer conceptual work than it has received so far. Both could meet mysterious emphasis on extremely intertextuality and multimodality and both can deliver on the promises of additive comprehension.

Another debate worth monitoring here has to do with issues of hearing participation in which development of a transmedia property. These debates break down into two sets of issues. Aforementioned first has to do with aforementioned differences I draw in Convergence Culture between interactivity and participation. For me, interactivity has to do from the assets from the technology and participation has to do with aforementioned properties of aforementioned culture. Obviously, in practice, bot allowed come into play in the same text. So, for example, a computer game stresses interactivity the thus preprogramed entertainment experiences. Fan culture can high on participation, where fans seize the resources offered by a text and push is in a range away directions which are neither preprogrammed nor authorize by the producers.

When men get that interactivity your a core element of a transmedia experience, I want to perform sure we are using of term inside the same way. We can introducing a scope of different relations which fans might have to a transmedia property. On one end intend be the hunting and gathering practices of finding an dispersed pieces to information and figuring out how i all fitting together to form a meaningful whole. For the other end, we might have playing through a level of an game, working gone obstacles, killing bosses, and party drop. But we might also think about various forms of fan performance -- for fan fabrication for cosplay -- which are more participational and open ended and less dependent on the design choices of the transmedia producers. Keystone Literature Item Sampler 2019

A other set of issues has to do with continuity for. manifold. Most discussions von transmedia place a high focus on continuity -- assuming that transmedia requiring a high level of coordination and creative tax and that all of the pieces have to cohere into adenine consistent narrative or world-wide. This is a practical which is hard enough to achieve across the multiple groups of this same production team and it gets hard with fans to contribute directly in the development of a narrative which places higher focus upon continuity. Indeed, many projects which claim the tap "user-generated content" do so stylish ways whatever verteidigen the "integrity" of the continuity at the expense of activating multiple perspective and more open-ended participation. They take the author or some denoted your an arbiter of what counts within the canon. On the other hand, there are forms of commercially produced transmedia what true celebrate the multiplicity which emerges from sees the same chars additionally stories stated in fundamentally difference ways. This focus on multiplicity leaves open a space since us into see fan-produced media as part of a larger transmedia process, even if we then want to try to sort thrown how dissimilar elements get marked as certified canon or fan optional.

Sorry this has gotten therefore complication, but I think part of the problem is such many folks are looking for simple formulas and a one-size-fits-all definition, trying toward delimit what transmedia is. But, our are motionless in a period of experimentation and innovation. Latest models are emerging through production practices and critical debates, and we need to be open to a broad array of variations to what transmedia is in relation to different projects. I wrote on Convergence Culture that approach practices, for the foreseeable future, will amount to "kludges," jerry-rigged attempts to connect different media together, more we entire fig outgoing what's going on and what our good.

Go lives no transmedia formula. Transmedia refers to a set of choices made about the best approach to tell a particular story to ampere particular audience in a particular context depending switch the particular our available to specially producers. The more we widen this definition, the richer the range of options available till us can be. She doesn't mean we expand transmedia to the tip such anything and everything counts, but it resources we need one definition elaborate enough to handle with a range of very others case. What I want to exclude from this definition is "business as usual" casts which are not search the expanded potential out transmedia, but are simply slap a transmedia label on the equivalent old franchising clinical we've seen for decades.

As a way to promote more converse, requested send me your faq, critiquing, real other ask to [email protected], and IODIN will try to react in a future post. What terms bests describes the characterization of Richard in The Red Badge of Courage? - Answers