Transmedia Storytelling

Technology advances over the last century have resulted in a reality where we can connect to others from around the globe on the world wide web, we can skype from our smart phones and e-mail from our television sets. The nature of communication is changing. As audiences have easier access different platforms and use them more often, television shows and movies have also evolved their entertainment experience to keep their audiences engaged.

Gone are the days when you crowded in silence around the television set to watch the weekly half hour episode of your favorite show then waited for a whole week until your program came on again and resolved that burning question about your favorite character. These days your probably reading character profiles on the internet whilst watching the episode and if you have missed one, catching up with a webisode or playing the online game.

This phenomena, the telling of a fictional story distributed through multiple different media channels is called transmedia storytelling. The theory was pioneered by Henry Jenkins, a modern scholar of digital communication. Jenkins (2006, p.95 ) stimulates that “each new text makes a distinctive and valuable contribution to the whole.” The different platforms used in transmedia storytelling offer different experiences in the fictional world and different information to gather but each platform should work in synergy to create the over arching story. Jenkins (2006) explains that The Matrix franchise exemplifies transmedia storytelling as the movies, games and online episodes created a narrative so expansive it couldn’t be contained to single medium. Transmedia story telling is most easily recognised in the fantasy genre where a fictional world might be the premise for television show then expanded on in game that offers exploration of intimate details of the fantasy world. The same characters can then be followed on their journey through a graphic novel whilst audiences answer interactive online quizzes that can the affect story direction in upcoming episodes.

Heroes is a recent example of telefantasy series that initially used transmedia storytelling well. The video below shows how characters from Heroes were integrated into the real lives of audiences as people could receive updates on their phones when Heroes characters where progressing on a journey or new information was available.

Heroes won awards for its integration of game, graphic novel and mobile phone technologies, used to deliver additional content that expanded and investigated the Heroes universe (Short, 2011). Evans (2011) argues that transmedia stories have “become less about promoting a central television program or film, and more about creating a coherent, deliberately cross-platform narrative experience.” Unfortunately, in the case of Heroes its multimedia success did not reflect that of the television show itself. Short (2011) believes that the alternative formats may have taken viewers away from the television format but ultimately un-rectified flaws in the story meant it went from a 15 million initial audience viewing to being cancelled four seasons later.

When stories are distributed across diverse platforms and, if done by the same company it is called horizonal integration. The same company works to distribute similar information across multiple different platforms. Smaller companies not large enough to take advantage of horizonal integration on their own could use an intermediary, such as, Transmedia Storyteller to utilise the variety of new platforms available to reach audiences.

Transmedia storytelling interacts with audiences and users across a variety of platforms to tell a story that is no longer classically linear but evolves according the medium it’s being told through. Ensslin (2011) argues that virtual worlds foster “creative growth, cultural cohension and public empowerment” and as online gaming becomes more popular audiences will not simply be told stories anymore but through use of transmedia they will become part of telling the stories as well.

Reference List

Bizdhara.com. (2011). What is vertical and horizontal integration. Retrieved from http://bizdharma.com/blog/what-is-vertical-and-horizontal-integration/

Confessions of an ACA fan. (2012). The official weblog of Henry Jenkins. Retrieved from http://www.henryjenkins.org/aboutme.html

Ensslin, A., & Muse, A. (2011). Creating second lives: Community, Identity and Spatitality as Constructions of the Virtual. Routledge. NY

Evans, E. (2011) Transmedia Television: Audiences, New Media and Daily Life. Routledge NY.

Heroes Transmedia. (2010). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_My6prvbQgA&feature=related

Jenkins, H. (2006) Convergence Culture: Where old a new media collide. New York University Press. New York & London.

National Broadcasting Corporation. (2011). Heroes. Retrieved from http://www.nbc.com/heroes/

Short, S. (2011) Cult Telefantasy Series: A critical analysis of The Prisoner, Twin Peaks, The X-Files, Buffy the Vamprie Slayer, Lost, Heroes, Doctor Who and Star Trek. McFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers, London

Transmedia Storyteller. (2012). How it works. Retrieved from http://www.tstoryteller.com/

Wikipedia. (2012). Webisode. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webisode

Collective Intelligence in Journalism

“No one knows everything, everyone knows something, all knowledge resides in humanity”

Pierre Levy

One field where collective intelligence is re-shaping the professional landscape is journalism. Before online information and communication technologies, journalists alone sourced and collected information for distribution. The newspapers or news stations where the first to know and first to disseminate information. The advent and popularity of digital media means collective intelligence is now being drawn upon in journalism through blogging, citizen journalism and micro-blogging.

Collective intelligence is a term first coined by Peirre Levy and is understood to mean “the capacity of networked ICTs to exponentially enhance the collective pool of social knowledge by simultaneously expanding the extent of human interactions...and new knowledge” (Levy as cited in Flew (2008, p. 21). Journalism is attempting to enhance the collective pool of knowledge through blogging. This type of journalism is relatively new but now mandatory for professional journalists as a means of communicating more information without the restrictions of page space in newspapers or broadcast time on television. The information is networked online, catalogued and archived so information distribution is not inhibited by geographic location or time of publishing. This means a journalist’s blog written about Syrian health conditions does not end up as a discarded newspaper or not watched on the the nightly news but rather the blog is ingested into a global network so as to expand the knowledge of anyone, world wide, seeking detail on that topic. ABC Blogs are expanding social knowledge on issues and also combining resources from radio, online and broadcast so that information is collated and easy to navigate. This new format of professional blogging by journalists is one way in which the profession is adding to the collective intelligence.

Alternatively, journalism is also benefiting from collective intelligence by the rise of citizen journalism. Recently, major news stories from around the world have not been seen first on television stations or in reports by professionals but from information from citizens themselves, uploading pictures and footage from smart phones to social networking sites such as facebook or video sharing websites such as youtube. The buddhist monk’s protest in Burma was unknown until video footage like this was uploaded by citizens which distinctly added new knowledge to the collective intelligence which was then expanded on by journalists to produce reports like this. This is just one case of many we have seen, most notably the uprising in Syria, which became public knowledge through by citizen journalists. The journalism profession is using this collective intelligence now as source for news stories. New information from citizen journalists is followed up on in professional reports so the collective intelligence is expanded as professional news gathers cover stories that they may not have otherwise been able to source themselves.

Another area where journalism is utilizing collective intelligence in micro-blogging. News outlets are continually updating their twitter accounts with links to news and current affairs. As these tweets negate space and time boundaries and to remain relevant globally Australian news outlets continually post international news coverage constantly adding to overall social knowledge. Not only this, but use of micro blogging adds to the human interaction surrounding this intelligence. With information distribution in this format easily ‘re-tweetable’ and linkable to facebook and other accounts, people are able to spread news themselves and also comment on it. The ABC's The Drum twitter account not only publishes material but incorporates audience tweets into its show. Broadcast journalism now utilizes digital television to show live tweets of audience members and allows them to ask questions or ask for clarification on issues and this is then addressed during the show. This type of cross platform interaction is expanding the human interaction around a certain topic. Where information used to flow only one-way, from communicator to receiver, journalism is utilising digital media networks to embrace the two-way nature of communication and expand collective intelligence.

The journalism profession is both a receiver of and contributor to collective intelligence by embracing digitalisation of its profession and incorporating, blogs, micro-blogs and citizen journalism into its distribution methods.

Reference List

About.com. (2012). Journalism: What is Citizen Journalism. Retrieved from http://journalism.about.com/od/citizenjournalism/a/whatiscitizen.htm

Australian Broadcast Corporation. (2012). Blogs. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/services/blogs/

Australian Broadcast Corporation. (2012). The Drum. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/#!/ABCthedrum

Exclusive footage of Myanmar crackdown - 10 Oct 07. (2007). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItPFPJ9c_E4

Flew, T. (2008). New Media, An Introduction. (3rd ed.). Australia: Oxford University Press.

Monks Revolution Continue in Burma. (2007). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJyPnhV_g74&feature=fvwrel

Real Story - Twitter and Journalism. (2010). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56nNgh9VVts&feature=related

Wikipedia. (2012). Microblogging. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microblogging