Week 9: Transmedia Guest Lecture from Christy Deena

Here is the lecture from Dr. Christy Deena. Please read through and think about what Christy asks you to do. Leave your comments here, as usual, and Christy will respond towards the end of the week.

A Quick Pulse Check on Transmedia

Transmedia storytelling is often understood through a definition put forward by academic Henry Jenkins:

Transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience. Ideally, each medium makes it own unique contribution to the unfolding of the story. (source: http://henryjenkins.org/2011/08/defining_transmedia_further_re.html)

Transmedia has kept evolving since the early days of theories around its nature. Let’s have a look at some top-level concepts that encompass key varieties of transmedia and see what we’ve learned over the past ten years:

1.     Medium

Story and experiences created with transmedia are affected by the nature of the media involved. Just as one writes for the affordances of film or television, writing a story that works across film and the web needs skills not just with each medium involved, but across them too. You have to create a storyworld (http://meanjin.com.au/blog/post/meanland-some-things-ive-learned-from-transmedia-worldbuilding/) that works in different media (a concept borrowed from franchise development), and you think about how your audience or players will be moved to continue with the story across media and so on. Two types of medium dispersion have arisen to various degrees however.

1.1  Intermedium

From the very beginning, most researchers and practitioners championed the “multi-platform” nature of transmedia. Indeed, my PhD thesis focused on creative works that are distinguished by their use of distinct media platforms (and environments). These types of projects are an under-recognised form(s) that deserved the spotlight transmedia theories provided. They’re not as pervasive as other mono-medium works though, in no small part due to the diverse and open thinking that transmedia requires. You don’t privilege or see artforms as hierarchies in transmedia. 

1.2  Intramedium

In practice though, what has emerged is a leaning towards intramedium works. These sorts of works, where the experience is dispersed across “sites” such as websites a kind of distributed narrative (http://jilltxt.net/txt/distributednarratives.html), have become more accessible and welcoming to practitioners and audiences alike. The creatives still need to work with the key creative challenge of transmedia: that of creating a wholeness out of dispersed works. But they’re not dealing with the added complication of medial boundaries. Lizzie Bennet Diaries (http://www.lizziebennet.com/) is a recognised recent exemplar of this type of transmedia, one that I have spoken about the significance of before (http://www.yousuckattransmedia.com/you-suck-at-seeing-transmedia-change/).

2.     Production Timing

It is part of the community-defining rhetoric of digital media to distinguish between “digital native” and “non-digital-native” works. This language emerges because there is a natural tendency towards remediation (http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Remediation.html?id=kwZZdKiXG8wC&redir_esc=y) . Indeed, anyone who works with “newcomers” finds that digital media is often viewed first as a delivery channel (for example streaming TV rather than making webisodes) and a place to adapt stories or games from another medium. It isn’t viewed as an artistic medium in itself. The same happens with transmedia. Works can be designed to be transmedia from the beginning, or made transmedia retrospectively.

2.1  Proactive

Proactive transmedia encompasses those works that are transmedia-native. They are designed to be transmedia from the beginning. Intramedium transmedia are always proactive transmedia.

2.2  Retroactive

Retroactive transmedia explains works that become transmedia because of the relationships added to an existing project. In most cases the scenario operates as follows: a mono-medium project is created (eg: a film or TV show or book or digital or analogue game); then either after it is released or after it has at least been thoroughly developed, the world is expanded in another medium. So the first work is designed to be experienced in a single medium, and the next work then tries to change that nature. This can be the harder route to take because the first work is conclusive, there isn’t much else to explore. The lack of success in this type of approach accounts in part for the lack of popularity with intermedium transmedia in some circles.

3.     Reality aesthetics

A related phenomenon is “alternate reality aesthetics”. The concept emerged with the rise of “alternate reality games” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_reality_game), and is observable in many transmedia projects outside of ARGs. It involves a relationship with the world of the player in some way. So rather than seeing a medium as a conduit or window to another world one is transported to, the actual present-time world is integrated in some way. This can be to various degrees ranging from being completely set in the here and now observing all the constraints of “reality” to involving fantastical elements too. A great majority of proactive intramedium transmedia works have the world of the audience or player recognised in some way.

4.     Participatory

Likewise, another trait of transmedia is implemented to varying degrees: that of the participatory nature. This involvement of the audience or players can be participatory design (during the development and production of the work), or participatory in the work. Like all of the approaches described above, this affects the nature of the work and requires a whole different skillset. It is perhaps the least pervasive approach though, due in part to the difficulties the creative process entails rather than lack of audience interest.

What types of transmedia have you come across? Are there ones you prefer? If so, why? Your answer might give an insight into the evolution of transmedia – why it has developed in the direction it has, and where it might be going…