The Transmedia theories: 6 elements
There's a lot of theorizing going on around the concept of storytelling, especially since the digital revolution rocked the world of media and communications. We've given you a share of it, like in this post on storytelling archetypes. There's a lot of rumour around the idea of transmedia storytelling as well, something we strongly advocate in this blog. Transmedia is the hypeword of today in content marketing.
The word Transmedia Storytelling seemed to be coined by MIT researcher Henry Jenkins as early as 2003. Jenkins noticed that the digital gaming industry was expanding across various media forms, doing something completely new. It were the Japanese with their Pokemon saga that truly pioneered crossmedia storytelling in the nineties of the last century with games, comics, movies and so on. Jenkins wrote: "We have entered an era of media convergence that makes the flow of content across multiple media channels almost inevitable."
Jenkins defined transmedia storytelling as follows: "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." So it's much more than just distributing your single (brand) message over as much as possible channels.
Transmedia storytelling theories are still under development though. A common understanding nowadays is that it also includes user generated content; moreover that the consumer takes the role of the narrator as well and becomes a prosumer.
We came across an interesting blog "State of Digital" with another try to bring clarity and structure to the idea of transmedia storytelling. Here we give you 6 elements derived from that blog:
1. Spreadability/Drillability: use social media tot expand and penetrate your audiences
2. Immersion/Extractability: drown users in your story, but also take out elements to bring into the users real life
3. World Building: Create and describe the world of your story meticulously, either fictional or as part of our real world
4. Seriality: since transmedia are everywhere, its storytelling must be serial, making the audience jump from one to another
5. Subjectivity: as a result, transmedia stories contain many viewpoints of the same narrative universe; viewpoints from different (prosumer) people taking part in the story
6. Performance: since users/audiences are expected to join the production, they need to perform as strong protagonists of the narrative universe.Without 'trekkies' no Star Trek mythology.
If you want to produce a credible transmedia story, start with creating a Bible, in which your narrative world is described thoroughly. Stick to that bible with every new withdrawal of a new story for one of your platforms. And, like in the gaming industry, keep it secret (like the Halo Story Bible).