Talk:Transmedia storytelling

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Transmedia: evolving concept
There are 2.550.000 Google references on Transmedia in January 2016, with meanings that go from simple "crossmedia" to complex "multimodality" communication. Transmedia currently refers to the multimedia context that emerges when human interaction happens among different digital or physical platforms. <1> In many accademic articles, this term is also used to express "fragmented narrative".<2> Transmedia implies complex communication abilities called "Transliteracy" skills, that allow users to code and decode messages from different sources and platforms, and integrate them to build a coherent mental discourse. This ability is essential to communicate and exchange many layers of information (literal meaning, implicit references, behavioral expectations), across different media paltforms, in different registers. Transmedia complexity can grow when using several languages and exploring several digital environments simultaneously. See also: <1> Scolari, Carlos Alberto (2013). Deusto, ed. Narrativas Transmedia. Cuando todos los medios cuentan. Deusto. p. 344. ISBN 9788423413362. <2> Jenkins, Henry (1 August 2011). «Transmedia 202: Further Reflections». Confessions of an AcaFan.

(NewsNeus (talk) 19:17, 7 January 2016 (UTC))

Constant Garbage
This article is junk. When it was written it entailed a few parties, but now everyone who wants to make an ARG or a TV pilot seems to appear. People use it simply to promote themselves. Jenkins and Gomez catch slack and are always edited out, but when these guys started talking transmedia almost a decade ago only one other person was using the term, Marsha Kinder.

This article should be deleted and left into disputes.

Difference from ARGs?
Is Transmedia Storytelling a type of Alternate Reality Game? Could someone add a paragraph describing the relation between transmedia storys and ARGs? --winterstein (talk) 14:20, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Transmedia Storytelling is a type of marketing strategy. ARG's are one of the many media forms that transmedia uses.--Nerch (talk) 17:58, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Great Start
Just wanted to say great start everybody. Cool concept, even cooler that you probably think so too. I'm hoping more experts join the fray. --Ill seletorre 21:38, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Link to blog post analyzing this article
This blog post gives a close reading of this article:
 * http://limorshiponi.com/2010/10/missing-storytelling-on-the-wrong-way-there/

--Pnm (talk) 05:21, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

I found a couple of good blog posts analyzing transmedia storytelling, seems like the topic could even change subject names to multiplatform storytelling: https://www.echostories.com/great-examples-multiplatform-storytelling/ Mollymwilkins (talk) 02:59, 9 May 2019 (UTC) MollyMWilkins

Possible copyright issues?
An abstract of a discussion session lead by Henry Jenkins here is almost identical to the third paragraph of the lead section of this page. That abstract may have used information from Wikipedia -- the talk was apparently held in January 2010, and this language seems to be on Wikipedia in November 2009 -- but it is possible that both copied from a third source. Has this page been vetted for possible copyright issues? Cnilep (talk) 13:03, 2 December 2010 (UTC)


 * This is likely a copyright violation. The abstract is even more identical to the very first version of this page from 2007. I looked unsuccessfully for the text in Convergence Culture. It seems likely copied from something Jenkins wrote.
 * I removed two sentences yesterday that were copied directly from their cited source. --Pnm (talk) 17:21, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Relevance Question and Suggestion to Merge
I came accross this article while looking for information to fill in notes on a marketing meeting I attended. The page shows that the relevance of the article is in question. I would recommend that this article be merged into a seperate section of the "Engagement marketing" article. Thanks. --Nerch (talk) 17:56, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Notability is not in question
Considering that there are PhD dissertations written on this topic (noted here), as well as anthologies and academic conference panels, there seems little doubt that this is a notable topic. Consequently, I've removed the 'notability' tag.--Jeremy Butler 20:36, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Self Publicity?
Yet again, I have removed the following:

"Stephen Dinehart, used transmedia storytelling as a production methodology. In his 2006 USC School of Cinematic Arts graduate thesis, "Transmedial Play" he created a model for transmedia story development, transmedial play and the viewer/user/player (VUP). In the paper he relates transmedia storytelling to Richard Wagner's concept of Gesamtkunstwerk ("the total artwork").[6] Dinehart goes on to suggest that unlike crossmedia projects of the past, in which intellectual properties cross media divides to maximize merchandising, "true" transmedia is designed in preproduction with the intent of immersion rather than simply rehashing such properties in post-production for maximum return on investment.[7]"

The inclusion of an undergraduate's thesis here is probably not appropriate, and smells a lot like self publicity

It is amusing that this 'talk' subject has also been deleted (and reinstated)

If Stephen wishes to edit his 'self-publicity' back in again, he should justify himself here Junius (talk) 17:01, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Delete section on ARG?
Any comments on whether to delete the sections on 'alternate reality games'? There is a well edited entry on this already so the efforts here seems rather wasted Junius (talk) 21:25, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Purged the Bloat
Holy cow, this article has turned into self-serving bloat text. I've removed the fat, and left what I think is pertinent to the definition, being historical and current examples, mostly. Wikipedia isn't the place to stake your academic claim over a subject.

Can we remove the Problem tag? Or does this get us in the right direction? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vpisteve (talk • contribs) 04:47, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Eastyn's Edit
intro Transmedia Storytelling describes the convergence of media, languages, and the way in which contemporary media systems are arranged or set out. Despite the theoretical chaos surrounding transmedia storytelling, this concept characterizes how multimodal narrative constructs create different consumers and establish a narrative society.

In other words, the study of TS, a concept introduced by Henry Jenkins…

History of transmedia storytelling Transmedia Storytelling can be related to the concepts of semiotics and narratology. Semiotics is the "science of signs" as many scholars may believe and a discipline concerned with sense production and interpretation processes. Narratology is a new narrative model based on different media and languages. Transmedia storytelling is a narrative structure that breaks through both language (semiotics) and media (narratology). Some effective strategies in transmedia storytelling include producing a fresh perspective on the original material and it’s original context across a new form of media. Transmedia stroytelling is how well a single story is comprehended across media. An effective strategy of transmedia storytelling does not take a passive approach, instead engages with popular culture making a story it’s own and providing a new context.

When it comes to strict adaptation in transmedia storytelling which is translating one medium to another: a book becomes a film, a comic becomes a video game. There is also a history describing pure transmedia: the book is an exact prequel to the film, ending at the exact moment prior to the films beginning. The earliest example of this would be the Bible. During early ages when many people were illiterate, narratives were passed on verbally, through “live theatre” where they were acted out, or illustrations.

Examples of
 * Star Wars
 * Star Trek
 * The Matrix
 * The Blair Witch Project
 * Avatar
 * Lost
 * Disney
 * Marvel Comics and DC Comics

These examples were successful because of the impact their multi-platform storytelling became. Star wars (arguably the most extensive world built across platforms)

The Blair Witch Project (their online marketing campaign marks the first use of web storytelling)

Much of the Disney "formula" for youth products: this tends to be straddle the nonexistent line between adaptation and TM storytelling but their franchise approach floods the market with multimedia examples.

Many comics that have been adapted to video games, feature films, animated shorts, etc.: Superman, Spiderman, etc. (origin stories, sequels, spinoffs, etc.)

Transmedia storytelling is apparent in comics, films, print media, radio, and now social media. The story is told different depending on the medium. And now with the development of social media, the story is told differently depending on which social media platform (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) The scale in which the impact each medium has differs from medium to medium. Before social media, radio and print media were the primary medium to connect with an audience. With the advancements in technology social media has become the best medium to reach a large scale of people in the fastest amount of time. In the ideal form of TS, “each medium does what it does best — so that a story might be introduced in a film, expanded through television, novels, and comics, and its world might be explored and experienced through game play. Each franchise entry needs to be self-contained enough to enable autonomous consumption. That is, you don't need to have seen the film to enjoy the game and vice-versa.” (Jenkins, 2003)

Each medium reaches a different audience. Traditional medium’s such as radio, print media, and film, garner the Gen X audience because of the familiarity of that generation with those specific mediums. The millennial generation uses a combination of mediums because there awareness of traditional media and the advancements of social media. The Gen Z audience is drawn to the social media medium similar to the reason to the Gen X audience is drawn to traditional mediums, because of the familiarity of the medium.

Giovagnoli, M., Vaglioni, P., & Montesano, F. (2014). Transmedia storytelling: Imagery, shapes, and techniques. S.l.: ETC Press.

Mcerlean, K. (2018). The Business of Transmedia Storytelling. Interactive Narratives and Transmedia Storytelling, 152-163. doi:10.4324/9781315637570-8

Scolari, C. A., Bertetti, P., & Freeman, M. (2014). Conclusions: Transmedia Storytelling and Popular Cultures in the Twentieth Century. Transmedia Archaeology, 72-77. doi:10.1057/9781137434371_5 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ebaleto (talk • contribs) 19:55, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Eastyn's Edits
intro Transmedia storytelling are stories told across multiple media platforms. As Scolari writes, a story might be introduced in a film, then expanded on in another media, such as television, comics, or a video game. Scolari tells us that transmedia storytelling is not just an adaptation from one media to another. Instead, the stories in the different media offer different entry points into the stories. Transmedia Storytelling describes the convergence of media, languages, and the way in which contemporary media systems are arranged or set out. Despite the theoretical chaos surrounding transmedia storytelling, this concept characterizes how multimodal narrative constructs create different consumers and establish a narrative society. In other words, the study of TS, a concept introduced by Henry Jenkins…

History of transmedia storytelling Transmedia Storytelling can be related to the concepts of semiotics and narratology. Semiotics is the "science of signs" as many scholars may believe and discipline concerned with sense production and interpretation processes (Scolari, 2014). Scolari goes on to show how semiotics and narratology can be a way to analyze transmedia. First ever text constructs its reader. Often the same test may create different kinds of implicit consumers. Narratology is a new narrative model based on different media and languages (Scolari, 2014). Transmedia storytelling is a narrative structure that breaks through both languages (semiotics) and media (narratology). Some effective strategies in transmedia storytelling include producing a fresh perspective on the original material and its original context across a new form of media. Transmedia stroytelling is how well a single story is comprehended across media. An effective strategy of transmedia storytelling does not take a passive approach, instead engages with popular culture making a story it’s own and providing a new context. When it comes to strict adaptation in transmedia storytelling which is translating one medium to another: a book becomes a film, a comic becomes a video game. There is also a history describing pure transmedia: the book is an exact prequel to the film, ending at the exact moment prior to the films beginning. The earliest example of this would be the Bible. During early ages when many people were illiterate, narratives were passed on verbally, through “live theatre” where they were acted out, or illustrations. Examples of

Star Wars Star Trek Pokemon 24 The Matrix The Blair Witch Project Avatar Lost Disney Marvel Comics and DC Comics These examples were successful because of the impact their multi-platform storytelling became. Star wars (arguably the most extensive world built across platforms) The Blair Witch Project (their online marketing campaign marks the first use of web storytelling) Much of the Disney "formula" for youth products: this tends to straddle the nonexistent line between adaptation and TM storytelling but their franchise approach floods the market with multimedia examples. Many comics that have been adapted to video games, feature films, animated shorts, etc.: Superman, Spiderman, etc. (origin stories, sequels, spinoffs, etc.) Scolari uses the example of Pokemon. There are video games, television shows, and card games all that use Pokemon as a center and point of entry. There is no one text that is the origination of the Pokemon series.

Scolari uses the example of 24 to show how transmedia storytelling occurs. 24 originated on Fox as a TV series but within a few years, it had generated a complex network of comics, video games, books, mobile episodes, etc. around the main character Jack Bauer and the Los Angeles Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU). Scolari writes that 24 creates a complex semiotic device for generating multiple implicit consumers who can be classified according to their relationship with the media. At the first level, there are single text consumers or those who just read the comic or play the video game. The consumer can understand the story without having to consume the rest of the texts. On a second level, 24 constructs different single media consumers. Here a viewer can enter the narrative world by watching the TV series every week. Finally, 24 created transmedia consumers because there are different media across different platforms that the consumer can enter into.

Transmedia storytelling is apparent in comics, films, print media, radio, and now social media. The story is told differently depending on the medium. And now with the development of social media, the story is told differently depending on which social media platform (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) The scale in which the impact each medium has differs from medium to medium. Before social media, radio and print media were the primary medium to connect with an audience. With the advancements in technology, social media has become the best medium to reach a large scale of people in the fastest amount of time. In the ideal form of TS, “each medium does what it does best — so that a story might be introduced in a film, expanded through television, novels, and comics, and its world might be explored and experienced through gameplay. Each franchise entry needs to be self-contained enough to enable autonomous consumption. That is, you don't need to have seen the film to enjoy the game and vice-versa.” (Jenkins, 2003) For the purpose of studying transmedia storytelling and how information becomes spreadable across multiple media platforms, we can look at four strategies for expanding the narrative world of media texts. First is the creation of interstitial microstories. Examples of these are video games, online clips, or comics. Next is the creation of parallel stories. Here, the idea is to create another story that unfolds at the same time as the macrostory. Scolari uses the example of the mobisode 24: Conspiracy. Third, the creation of peripheral stories is considered spin-offs from the original stories. The example of 24 novels is used to show how texts have a weak relationship to the macrostory, but still connected to it. The final strategy is user-generated content platforms like blogs or wikis. These environments are open source story-creation machines that allow users to add to the fictional world. this could also be called fan fiction. Each medium reaches a different audience. Traditional medium’s such as radio, print media, and film, garner the Gen X audience because of the familiarity of that generation with those specific mediums. Scolari uses the example of Shrek-it is a film for kids, but some of the dialogue contains jokes that are meant for adults. Thus, the same text is creating at least two groups of consumers-children and adults or parents. The millennial generation uses a combination of mediums because of there awareness of traditional media and the advancements of social media. The Gen Z audience is drawn to the social media medium similar to the reason to the Gen X audience is drawn to traditional mediums, because of the familiarity of the medium.

Giovagnoli, M., Vaglioni, P., & Montesano, F. (2014). Transmedia storytelling: Imagery, shapes, and techniques. S.l.: ETC Press. Mcerlean, K. (2018). The Business of Transmedia Storytelling. Interactive Narratives and Transmedia Storytelling, 152-163. doi:10.4324/9781315637570-8 Scolari, C. A., Bertetti, P., & Freeman, M. (2014). Conclusions: Transmedia Storytelling and Popular Cultures in the Twentieth Century. Transmedia Archaeology, 72-77. doi:10.1057/9781137434371_5 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ebaleto (talk • contribs) 21:47, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Possible Sources to add to this post
Sources:

Gambarato, Renira Rampazzo, (2012, December) Signs, Systems and Complexity of Transmedia Storytelling.

http://www.ec.ubi.pt/ec/12/pdf/EC12-2012Dez-4.pdf

This article addresses key concepts such as sign, system and complexity in order to approach transmedia storytelling and better understand its intricate nature. The theoretical framework chosen to investigate transmedia storytelling meanders is Semiotics by Charles Sanders Peirce and General Systems Theory by Mario Bunge.

Yuri Borges de Araújo, Maria Do Socorro Furtado Veloso (2015, Sept. 01) The problematization of transmediation in the journalistic context: an analysis of transmedia storytelling from feature articles

https://bjr.sbpjor.org.br/bjr/article/view/814

The concept of transmedia storytelling has been gaining acceptance and application in the most diverse fields of communication, including journalism. However, such uses do not often take into account the characteristics of the area studied. This paper aims to problematize the transmedia storytelling within the field of journalism through three sources: the concept developed by Fechine et al. (2011, 2012, 2013) throughout a much wider phenomenon, the transmediation; studies that aim to characterize the journalistic discourse and the theoretical tradition about newsmaking.

Hassler-Forest, D., Guynes, S. (2012) Star Wars and the history of transmedia storytelling

This collection grapples with the historical, cultural, aesthetic, and political-economic implications of the relationship between media franchising and transmedia storytelling as they are seen at work in the world's most profitable transmedia franchise.

Gambarato, R.R. (2012, December 1) Signs, Systems and Complexity of Transmedia Storytelling. Estudos em Comunicação, 01 December 2012, Vol.12, pp.69-83

This article addresses key concepts such as sign, system and complexity in order to approach transmedia storytelling and better understand its intricate nature.

Zagfan015 (talk) 02:49, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: COML 509: Social Media Engagement and Analysis
— Assignment last updated by STXL18 (talk) 13:32, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Some student observations
This honestly fails to capture anything that’s interesting or compelling about the concept. This 2013 Atlantic article (linked to in the article) more readily conveys the essential qualities and possibility.

For this reason the list of “notable examples” of current transmedia storytelling projects fails to provide sufficient description of the various projects to allow readers to fully conceptualize the how the technique is especially engaging in the digital age.

Among the changes I can make is to move the definition to the top of the Wikipedia page, so that readers “are able to pick up on the concept more clearly.”

I found the article needed some clarity or distinction between this broad notion of "transmedia storytelling" which, for our purposes today should be taken to mean explicitly "cross-platform integrated and co-created digital-media storytelling for marketing purposes." Because this distinction isn’t made explicitly clear, I judged the section titled “Educational uses” to be deficient and narrowminded. Although an interesting avenue for investigation, the section ought to be removed from this article.

I would recommend, in agreement with WIkipedian Nerch, that the article, after severe pruning, be “merged into a separate section of the ‘Engagement marketing’ article.” (Nerch, 2011).

These changes would help to make the concept apprehensible to readers rather than opaque, and further spark their own creative efforts. MLBinker (talk) 17:02, 22 October 2022 (UTC) MLBinker (talk) 17:01, 22 October 2022 (UTC)


 * I have removed a few sections of this page that were unsourced or original research. More editing might be necessary. I am not opposed to merging it into another article altogether Soni (talk) 08:41, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

A lead change I think would provide some clarity
I would edit the lead to note that transmedia story telling uses "contemporary" technologies in an attempt to make clear that the activity, transmedia storytelling, is and age-old human activity of storytelling across multimedia (oral, written, song, dance, puppets, art, etc), distinct from transmedia *digital* storytelling using online platforms, video, etc.:

"Transmedia storytelling is the technique of telling a single story or story experience across multiple platforms and formats using contemporary technologies.

From a production standpoint in the digital age, transmedia storytelling (also known as transmedia narrative or multiplatform storytelling) involves creating content that engages an audience using various techniques to permeate their daily lives. In order to achieve this engagement, a transmedia production will develop stories across multiple forms of digital media in order to deliver unique pieces of content in each channel. Importantly, these pieces of content are not only linked together (overtly or subtly) but are in narrative synchronization with each other. "

MLBinker (talk) 17:10, 22 October 2022 (UTC)