This is the first post of five that I will be writing on the topic of “Transmedia.” Don’t worry, I’ll try and explain what it means and you in the back just be quiet about the name, I’ll get to that too.
A little about me: I am by no means an expert on Transmedia, I’m merely passing on what I have learned to date as a n00b, how it’s in use today, where it appears to be heading, the folks that are forces of nature in this space, and how you can get involved.
A few months back I started attending the Transmedia LA Group meetups. My friend Jay Bushman told me about the group and I thought it sounded interesting from what little I knew of the actual term. Being the well researched person I like to think of myself as, I read up on the subject. What I realized was that I had been partaking in Transmedia Storytelling for a very long time. As a gamer, movie and TV lover (addict), enthusiast of the written word, and heavy adopter of all online services and gadgetry, I was getting hit at all angles. This was a fantastic revelation because if I had been aware, then I would have probably become a skeptic and backed away thinking I was being marketed to. I like clever, I don’t like blatant marketing. Fast forward and look at me now! I’m the grunt co-organizer of the Transmedia LA Group and have met some really talented, forward thinking and funny people. I want to eat their brains. Before I joined the group I started working on my own neighborhood-centric transmedia experience (now I know there’s a term!) and I’m helping out on another project.
Trans What?
The term has been around for a long time, but hardly any of my friends outside of the Transmedia world (and I have at least one, maybe two smart friends) know what it means. There isn’t one solid definition from what I can tell because there really seems to be at least two camps: there’s the purists (e.g. storytellers) and there’s the media companies.
Let’s start with looking at the actual word itself before we dive into the myriad of definitions:
Trans is a Latin noun or prefix, meaning “across”, “beyond” or “on the opposite side”.
Media in the context of communications means “tools used to store and deliver information or data.”
Alright, so Transmedia roughly means “tools to deliver and store information across or beyond.”
That’s vague. Vague can be good, but it can also be bad if you look at some of the companies that are exploiting it for profit at the expense of the audience.
I Googled “Transmedia” to see what pops on the first page (because who ever clicks to page 2?), plus I grabbed definitions from a few people I respect. Here’s a few for you:
Producer’s Guild of America “A Transmedia Narrative project or franchise must consist of three (or more) narrative storylines existing within the same fictional universe on any of the following platforms: Film, Television, Short Film, Broadband, Publishing, Comics, Animation, Mobile, Special Venues, DVD/Blu-ray/CD-ROM, Narrative Commercial and Marketing rollouts, and other technologies that may or may not currently exist. These narrative extensions are NOT the same as repurposing material from one platform to be cut or repurposed to different platforms.”
Steve Peters wrote a post after a big explosion on Twitter, The Transmedia Hijack (or how Transmedia is the New Dihydrogen Monoxide): His definition is “a single story spread beginning-to-end across multiple platforms.”
Jeff Gomez of Starlight Runner Entertainment defines transmedia as “the art of conveying messages themes or storylines to mass audiences through the artful and well planned use of multiple media platforms.”
Jay Bushman doesn’t have a definition, but this is what I found this on his website: “A discussion between two transmedia creators will produce five definitions of transmedia.”
Henry Jenkins, from his book, Convergence Culture, “Transmedia storytelling is storytelling by a number of decentralized authors who share and create content for distribution across multiple forms of media. Transmedia immerses an audience in a story’s universe through a number of dispersed entry points, providing a comprehensive and coordinated experience of a complex story.”
Wikipedia: Transmedia storytelling is a technique of telling stories across multiple platforms and formats, recognized for its use by mass media to develop media franchises.
*cough* No offense, but wut? Seize the Media – Transmedia is a format of formats; an approach to story delivery that aggregates fragmented audiences by adapting productions to new modes of presentation and social integration. The execution of a transmedia production weaves together diverse storylines, across multiple outlets, as parts of an overarching narrative structure. These elements are distributed through both traditional and new media outlets. The online components exploit the social conventions, and social locations, of the internet.
Robert Pratten’s definition from his site Transmedia Storyteller (and who I think does a superb job by explaining in plain terms and with great diagrams): “’Transmedia storytelling’ is telling a story across multiple media and preferably, although it doesn’t always happen, with a degree of audience participation, interaction or collaboration. In transmedia storytelling, engagement with each successive media heightens the audience’ understanding, enjoyment and affection for the story. To do this successfully, the embodiment of the story in each media needs to be satisfying in its own right while enjoyment from all the media should be greater than the sum of the parts.”
Alright, so there’s concise and then there’s WTF?
Do What You Wanna Do
At the end of the day, I personally don’t think it really matters what the definition is because as an artist, storyteller, producer, whatever, you gotta do what works best for you so you can tell the story. If you are trying to fit a square peg into a round hold in order to tag it “transmedia” well then, I think you are a marketer.
I like short and sweet and unrestrictive so I vote for using Steve Peter’s definition with a caveat “a single story (world experience) spread beginning-to-end across multiple platforms.”
I did ask him some clarifying questions over Twitter:
Question: @vpisteve when you say “spread” do you mean parts of the story are consumed per platform or told in different ways per platform. Both?
Answer: @tara mostly the former, but not precluding little bits of the latter?
Question: @vpisteve what’s your take on contributing to the story? Depends on IP?
Answer: @tara I think audience participation/touching the story is a separate element, not limited to one or the other
What I believe makes sense is the following:
- One Story
WorldExperience. - More than one media platform (doesn’t have to be digital, could be fine art such as paintings, graffiti, etc.)
- The story on each platform must be able to stand alone and enjoyed individually. E.g. “Lost” was a fine TV show on it’s own but “The Lost Experience” encompassed a whole online world that many a sleuth enjoyed.
- No copy and paste between platforms; utilize the strengths of the platform to tell the story in a unique way. Taking your novel and tweeting it out word for word, is not transmedia IMHO.
I LOVE what Henry Jenkins has to say when asked about the history of transmedia in this blog post, A Remediated, Premediated, and Transmediated Conversation with Richard Grusin (Part Three) . I think the examples are spot on and related well back to the definition that works for me:
Yes, depending on how broadly or narrowly we define transmedia. I have made the argument that the church in the middle ages was profoundly transmedia if you lacked the capacity to read. For the priests, the Bible stories were rooted in a text and everything else would have been understood as an illustration of that text. But if you couldn’t read that text, you were absorbing bits of the stories from many different sources in the culture around you and the stories could be brought together via stainglass windows, tapestries, or paintings, where characters from multiple stories or symbols for many parables might exist side by side. Michelangelo is in that sense a profoundly intertextual artist.
What’s In a Name?
There has been a lot of bitching and moaning over the name “Transmedia” for quite some time. Some people don’t like the name because it’s been incorrectly used by marketeers who have destroyed what the actually storytellers are trying to do. From my perspective, I have to agree with Nina Bargiel who wrote the post, I Am A Transmedia Producer and she says “People want a Transmedia Producer. I don’t care if they know what that is – it’s my job to know what it is. So I’m gonna let be a Transmedia Producer.”
There have been several suggestions for new names, including:
- Alternate Reality Entertainment
- Cross-platform Storytelling
- Multiple Platform Storytelling
- Platform Agnostic Storytelling
- Transmedia Experience
- Transmedia Storytelling
Kevin Moss made this amusing interactive chart “Should I Feel Embarrassed Using the Phrase Transmedia?”
There are a two blog posts that have been written over the last few days that you should read:
“Your Mom is Transmedia” by Geoff May
“Last Thing I’ll Say” by Lucas J.W. Johnson
My belief is that if you write a really good story and execute on it, that’s what people are going to be talking about, not if it’s categorized correctly.
That’s the end of this post. Got a definition for Transmedia? Comment away friends!
For Post #2 I’m going to cover examples of what I think are fun Transmedia experiences.
-Tara
pic from here.
For Your Reading Pleasure
Mike Monello – A Universal Framework – Power to the Pixel 2010 + Video.
Workbook Project and their AWESOME Transmedia Talk Podcast.
Transmedia Entertainment: 8 Defining Characteristics
What’s The Difference Between Cross-Media Marketing and Transmedia Storytelling?
7 Collaborative Storytelling Websites to Weave Your Own Digital Stories
