Transmedia Storytelling

“Transmedia Storytelling 101” 
 1. Why is transmedia storytelling important in digital convergence communication?

• Transmedia storytelling uses multiple media platforms tell a narrative across time. Each media piece—whether it’s a comic, novels, video games, mobile apps, or a film—functions as a standalone story experience—complete and satisfying. Like a giant puzzle, each piece also contributes to a larger narrative. The process is cumulative and each piece adds richness and detail to the story world, such as character backstories and secondary plotlines.

2. Why can the media business be beneficial more from transmedia storytelling in distributing their productions?

• they can actually benefit because the transmedia storytelling is so much more involved than just a production. Each thing that they do is able to appeal to anyone of any target market.

3. How can transmedia storytelling be beneficial for different bodies of audience in consuming productions?

• As noted previously, the transmedia storytelling appeals to everyone from every different walk of life. This allows  company to appeal to everyone and all of their different likes and needs.

4. How can transmedia storytelling be worked out in terms of collective intelligence in the process of production? 

• Transmedia storytelling is the ideal aesthetic form for an era of collective intelligence. Pierre Levy coined the term, collective intelligence, to refer to new social structures that enable the production and circulation of knowledge within a networked society. Participants pool information and tap each others expertise as they work together to solve problems. Levy argues that art in an age of collective intelligence functions as a cultural attractor, drawing together like-minded individuals to form new knowledge communities. Transmedia narratives also function as textual activators – setting into motion the production, assessment, and archiving information. The ABC television drama, Lost, for example, flashed a dense map in the midst of one second season episode: fans digitized a freeze-frame of the image and put it on the web where together they extrapolated about what it might reveal regarding the Hanso Corporation and its activities on the island.

5. How does transmedia storytelling encourage the interactivity with the audience?

• transmedia text does not simply disperse information: it provides a set of roles and goals which readers can assume as they enact aspects of the story through their everyday life. We might see this performative dimension at play with the release of action figures which encourage children to construct their own stories about the fictional characters or costumes and role playing games which invite us to immerse ourselves in the world of the fiction. In the case of Star Wars, the Boba Fett action figure generated consumer interest in a character who had otherwise played a small role in the series, creating pressure for giving that character a larger plot function in future stories.