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
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