Transmedial Storytelling

Quand Dora explore le supermarché : les marques à l'assaut des programmes audiovisuels.

by Justine MARILLONNET

Second Screen White-paper

by Ricard Gras

White-paper about the state-of-affairs re 2nd Screen (also known as ConnectedTV). Written between Oct-Nov 2011 (on a consultancy assignment for Berlin's Crowdpark).

NOTE: though the document provides generic recommendations and does attempt at looking objectively into the subject, as a study (into what effectively is a novel and fast-moving subject area), is bound to become outdated very soon. Feel free to connect via Twitter and/or linked to continue the conversation.

Second Screen (also known as Second Screen Entertainment) is referred to interactive content accessible via portable... more Second Screen (also known as Second Screen Entertainment) is referred to interactive content accessible via portable
devices such as Tablet PC’s and smart phones that provides additional content to viewers as they access media content like
for instance a movie or Television program.

The document explores the popularisation of the herein after referred to as smart devices (Tablet PC’s and smart phones)
and some of the new user habits emerging from the use of such devices and their effects on TV viewing (although such
effects could also extrapolate onto other types of media). This study also lists many, though not all, the initiatives that are
currently pioneering into this market area.

This study concludes that, given the progressive acceptance of smart devices (and the concurrent changes in user habits
they promote) 2nd-Screen apps that are purposely-designed to run alongside media content may tap into considerable
future opportunities. Though the industry is clearly at a phase of trial and error in relation with this subject area, a series of
pioneering productions are already anticipating what could be a  bright future for the equation: smart devices + TV
screen. Likewise, in the midst of this experimental process, a series of challenges are also coming the fore: for instance, the
difficulties of generating multi-screen content that supports (rather than disrupts) the viewing experience.

Mutter

by Rafael Antunes

Lápis Azul

by Rafael Antunes

O projeto "Lápis Azul" tem como principal objetivo o desenvolvimento de uma narrativa transmedia que agregue... more O projeto "Lápis Azul" tem como principal objetivo o desenvolvimento de uma narrativa transmedia que agregue diferentes plataformas e tecnologias que tenham cruzamentos narrativos e dramáticos.

A partir de um núcleo central constituído por um filme de ficção enganchado em factos reais, a narrativa vai estender-se, por um documentário, um site com material de arquivo sobre a censura, um jogo online que desafia a escrita sobre temas sensíveis à censura, websódios com personalidades que foram visados pela censura e estão retratados no filme de ficção e um debate sobre a liberdade de imprensa.

Come together, right now: We know somethingʼs happening, but we donʼt know what it is.

by Aram Sinnreich

Review of Henry Jenkins' "Convergence Culture." International Journal of Communication, 2007.

Ironically, given its title and theme, Henry Jenkins’ newest book, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media... more Ironically, given its title and theme, Henry Jenkins’ newest book, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, offers a maddeningly divergent range of ideas, arguments and anecdotes, without ever converging on a single point or conclusion. The book aspires at various junctures to cultural theory, techno-futurism, media criticism, subcultural anthropology, sociopolitical advocacy, and (perhaps most effectively, if most surprisingly) 21st century marketing manifesto. Unfortunately, the whole amounts to something less than the sum of its parts; despite many engaging passages, presented in Jenkins’ typically accessible and entertaining prose style, not one of these many germs of an idea comes to full fruition.

Wu Ming e l'arte del Campionamento: Bit generation e cultura del remix

by Tiziano Bonini

published in: Canova Gianni (a cura di), Drammaturgie multimediali, Milano, Unicopli., 2009

Se da un lato la pratica dell'appropriazione e della rielaborazione di forme culturali precedenti è sempre esistita –... more Se da un lato la pratica dell'appropriazione e della rielaborazione di forme culturali precedenti è sempre esistita – i romani hanno “remixato” l'antica Grecia (secondo la feconda metafora di Lev Manovich) – oggi si sta estendendo ad ogni dominio della produzione culturale. Un grafico che lavora su un poster e un musicista che costruisce un brano remixano entrambi vecchie composizioni. Difficilmente creano qualcosa ex-novo. E soprattutto condividono lo stesso continuum tecnologico: il computer come mezzo di produzione e comunicazione del proprio lavoro. Usano quindi le stesse applicazioni: “taglia e incolla”, zoom, modifica di variabili (colori, tonalità, font, volumi, frequenze, equalizzazioni, ecc..). Il computer si è sostituito al pennello, alla macchina da scrivere, allo strumento musicale, è diventata una “remediation machine”: una macchina in grado di simulare e contenere media precedenti. Bolter e Grusin chiamano “remediation” la “rappresentazione di un medium all'interno di un altro”3. Ogni nuovo medium, secondo loro, non fa che “rimediare” quelli precedenti. L'analisi di Bolter e Grusin era già stata anticipata da uno dei padri dell'informatica, Alan Kay, che già negli anni settanta descriveva il computer come un metamedium:

"Il computer è un medium che può simulare dinamicamente le caratteristiche di altri mezzi di comunicazione. Non è uno strumento, anche se può prendere il posto di molti strumenti. E' il primo metamedium, e possiede un grado di libertà di rappresentazione ed espressione mai incontrati prima d'ora e mai investigati".


La differenza con l'antichità è soprattutto quantitativa. Abbiamo più materiale a disposizione per il remix (internet) e abbiamo strumenti che ci facilitano nel remix (software e applicazioni web). Al momento però gli unici campi dove il remix e il campionamento sono stati istituzionalizzati, “sdoganati” e considerati legittimi sono la musica e la programmazione informatica, eppure pratiche di replicabilità simili le troviamo in altri domini dell'arte, dalla letteratura al cinema alla fotografia al design.

Analizzeremo queste pratiche dalla musica alla rete e nell'ultima parte ci concentreremo sulla letteratura, un dominio dove le pratiche di remix sono ormai state ampiamente incorporate tra le tattiche di scrittura degli autori ma senza una esplicita legittimazione.

Reality game shows y narrativa transmediática. Análisis de las estrategias de expansión transmediática de Operación Triunfo y American Idol

by Merce Oliva

Oliva, M.; Pérez, O. (2011). "Reality game shows y narrativa transmediática. Análisis de las estrategias de expansión transmediática de Operación Triunfo y American Idol". Paper presentado en el III Congreso Internacional Latina de Comunicación Social (La Laguna [Tenerife], 6-9 de diciembre de 2011).

En los últimos años el concepto de narrativa transmediática ha emergido como un objeto de estudio central para la... more En los últimos años el concepto de narrativa transmediática ha emergido como un objeto de estudio central para la comprensión de la nueva narrativa televisiva. Habitualmente este tipo de estudios se han centrado en la ficción, sin embargo géneros híbridos como los reality game shows, que también construyen un relato, han establecido sinergias muy significativas con la web (entre otros medios) para enriquecer el mundo narrativo que ofrecen a los espectadores. Por lo tanto, para entender en toda su extensión el fenómeno de la narrativa transmediática también es necesario analizar las estrategias de expansión de estos programas.
En este contexto, esta comunicación plantea como objetivo analizar la expansión transmediática de dos de los reality game shows más populares a nivel internacional y que han utilizado estas estrategias de forma sustancial: Operación Triunfo y American Idol.
Para abordar este objetivo se ha desarrollado una metodología basada en el análisis textual, que incluye el estudio de las características del programa televisivo (análisis de la estructura y diseño de los espacios, las reglas del juego y la realización audiovisual) y la web (análisis de contenidos, diseño visual, diseño de la interactividad y “usuario modelo” construido).
Los resultados de la investigación permiten definir una serie estrategias de expansión transmediática del programa televisivo hacia la web y otros medios, que tienen que ver fundamentalmente con la profundización en los personajes, su representación como estrellas y la construcción del espectador/usuario modelo como fan

This is not for you? Reading and Remediating "House of Leaves" as an Alternate Reality Game

by Lauren Burr

Master's Research Essay, Carleton University, 2011

Diegetic Exposure and Cybernetic Performance: Towards Interactional Metalepsis

by Astrid Ensslin

Plenary paper presented at 'Staging Illusion', University of Sussex, 8-9 December 2011

Metalepsis is a rhetorical and narratological term (Genette 1980, Wolf 2005, Kukkonen 2011) referring to aesthetic... more Metalepsis is a rhetorical and narratological term (Genette 1980, Wolf 2005, Kukkonen 2011) referring to aesthetic techniques used across media to "jump across" or break ontological boundaries between fictional and actual worlds, as well as between various layers of diegesis. Metalepses can involve a full physical transgression, i.e. a way of transporting characters, narrators or the audience into and out of diegetic levels or ontological spheres/worlds, or indeed just a quick ‘glance’ across, for instance by briefly addressing a reader, viewer, or player. Typical examples of metalepsis include author-narrators talking to readers, characters stepping through film screens into superordinate or subordinate narrative worlds; vidders creating films as a platform where they (or rather representations of themselves) meet their favourite popular media characters; avatars impersonating players in game worlds; and players talking about their avatars in the first person. The specific effects of metalepsis vary across media; they depend both on authorial intention and individual interpretation, but generally speaking, they are either illusionist or ani-illusionist in nature: they either create/augment feelings of immersion or disrupt the willing suspension of disbelief.
In this talk I offer a survey of metaleptic techniques and their effects across media and showcase how specific media affordances help to to "stage" illusion in two respects: by exposing and subverting mimetic illusion, and by enacting it as an interactive performance. I will begin by mapping some important theoretical concepts, such as rhetorical vs. ontological, ascending vs. descending metalepsis, participatory, interactional and hetero-metalepsis. This will be followed by a tentative typology of illusionist and anti-illusionist metaleptic narratives from narrative fiction (e.g. Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds), comics, film (e.g. Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo), fan culture, digital fiction (e.g. Lance Olsen and Tim Guthrie's 10:01), videogames (e.g. Tale of Tales' The Path; Bioware's Dragon Age: The Origins), virtual worlds (Second Life) and the discourses and artistic practices surrounding them.

De Pong à World of Warcraft : construction et circulation de la culture (vidéo) ludique

by Vincent Berry

Berry Vincent, « De Pong à World of Warcraft : construction et circulation de la culture (vidéo) ludique », in Gilles Brougère, La rondes des jeux et des jouets, Paris : Autrement, 2008, pp. 22-42.

Pour comprendre comment s’est développée la culture du jeu vidéo – si l’on nous accorde ici l’emploi du singulier – et... more Pour comprendre comment s’est développée la culture du jeu vidéo – si l’on nous accorde ici l’emploi du singulier – et comment elle circule aujourd’hui au-delà des jeux vidéo, nous nous attachons ici à analyser l’émergence de ces produits ludiques en évoquant non seulement les industries importantes qui ont contribué à construire cette culture mais également quelques titres révélateurs de l’évolution du jeu vidéo2. Comprendre cette culture, c’est comprendre tous les acteurs et les éléments qui contribuent collectivement à la produire : les éditeurs, le marketing, la presse, les fabricants de matériel. De la même façon que l’on ne peut comprendre la poupée aujourd’hui sans évoquer la poupée Barbie et la société Mattel3, on ne peut comprendre la culture du jeu vidéo sans prendre en considération le rôle essentiel d’entreprises comme Atari, Nintendo, Sega ou plus récemment Blizzard. Analyser la culture du jeu vidéo c’est également sortir d’une vision purement économique pour en saisir, au-delà du marketing, la dimension collaborative. C’est en effet une caractéristique forte de cette culture ludique que de favoriser des relations étroites entre industries et joueurs, mouvement présent dès les origines du jeu vidéo et qui tend à se radicaliser dans ses récentes évolutions avec les jeux vidéo en ligne.

Competencias para la cohesión social en la era de la Generación Transmedia

by Jose Manuel Noguera

Dracula Defanged: Empowering the Player in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

by Clara Fernandez Vara

Loading..., Vol 4, No 6 (2010)

The Castlevania games are not designed to scare the player, but they resort to elements from horror literature and... more The Castlevania games are not designed to scare the player, but they resort to elements from horror literature and film, including references to Bram Stoker’s novel and using characters from monster movies as level bosses. Horror conventions are used as cues to build the gameworld and to understand the game design, and how the player appropriates some of those conventions to empower herself in the process.

The article focuses on the figure of the vampire in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and how the conventions set in previous media are integrated in the design of the game. Dracula has been divested of his vampiric powers; rather, he acquires typical videogame boss powers, launching fireballs and teleporting himself within the screen. The powers lost by Dracula as a videogame boss are picked up and amplified by the player character, the half-vampire Alucard. This shift is the result of a process started in other media. The powers of the vampire have now been appropriated by the player as a means to empower their interaction in the gameworld, making the vampire a desirable character to the player.

Telling Worlds

by Frederik Lesage

A Critical Text by Frederik Lesage

Zapośredniczone zapośredniczenie. Pakiet transmedialny w działaniu

by Katarzyna Kopecka-Piech

Nowe media we współczesnym społeczeństwie, red. M. Jeziński, A. Seklecka, Ł. Wojtkowski, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu im. Mikołaja Kopernika, Toruń 2011.

„Ponad” i „pomiędzy” (nowymi) mediami. Użytkownicy w nowym środowisku

by Katarzyna Kopecka-Piech

„Annales Universitatis Paedagogicae Cracoviensis. Studia de Cultura I”, Folia 88, 2010.

Convergent Landscape. ’39 and a Half’ as a (Multi) Promotional Intertext

by Katarzyna Kopecka-Piech

"Journal of Education Culture and Society" 2010, nr 2
transl. K. Pawliszczak

The purpose of this article is to provide a broader characterisation of the media convergence strategy applied by... more The purpose of this article is to provide a broader characterisation of the media convergence strategy applied by producers of the Polish commercial television station (TVN) series 39 and a half (39 i pół). In order to examine the convergence strategies of production, distribution, promotion and media usage, this paper analyzes metaphors of landscape, terrain, map and simulacrum. Moreover the concept of convergent (inter)text is proposed. In the case study of 39 and a half the author examines three main strategies implemented by the creators: the promotional virtualisation of reality, making virtual reality more real, and multiplied fiction. Transmedial and synergetic brands illustrate the hybridisation of the convergent and integrated media landscape.
Keywords: media convergence new media media landscape convergent intertext

"I Came to Galactica to Tell a Story": Battlestar Galactica and Transmedia Interactivity

by Jenni Fong

presented at the SWTX PCA/ACA conference in 2010

With the advent of the Internet, interactive transmedia storytelling is increasingly becoming the norm in television,... more With the advent of the Internet, interactive transmedia storytelling is increasingly becoming the norm in television, a trend that started in the realm of science-fiction. In this paper, I will examine how Battlestar Galactica (2003-2009) takes advantage of transmedia techniques to enhance its narrative and cultivate fan interaction. While Galactica has a host of transmedia extensions, the most prominent ones that I will focus on are the webisodes, creator and executive producer Ron Moore’s podcast, and the fan-generated Battlestar Wiki. Each is a different type of narrative extension and offers varying levels of interaction for viewers. Galactica’s webisodes—“The Resistance,” “Razor Flashbacks,” and “The Face of the Enemy”—expand the series’ diegetic narrative by focusing primarily on minor characters to flesh out plot points from the main series. They also offer minimal interaction; engagement is solely on the level of the text. The podcast, in contrast, elaborates on the non-diegetic world of the show, providing extra-textual “insider” information from the show’s creator. These podcast commentaries therefore provide indirect interaction between creator and fans. Finally, the Battlestar Wiki acts as an encyclopedia, encompassing both diegetic and non-diegetic information pertinent to the series. While it does not contain user-generated content like fan fiction or videos, of the three the Wiki offers viewers the greatest interaction with both the text and each other, thereby simultaneously building a fan community and an immersive Galactica world.

Only Half the Story: Radio Drama, Online Audio and Transmedia Storytelling.

by Lance Dann

To be delivered at the Radio Evolution conference, Braga, Portugal in September 2011

Online audio drama creates the potential not just for new forms and patterns of listening (on-demand and audience... more Online audio drama creates the potential not just for new forms and patterns of listening (on-demand and audience controlled) or for revised methods of plot structuring (with series stacking allowing for the use of extended narrative arcs) but of a complete re-creation of the listening experience as being part of an act of transmedia storytelling – one in which the narrative spins out of the fictive realm and overlays the ‘lived’ experience of the listener.

This paper will discuss the opportunities that have been opened up for writers and producers of radio drama through the development of online and downloadable audio. It will discuss the use of both social media tools and diverse media platforms in the construction of story in which the membrane between the real and fictive has become permeable. It will focus on the author’s ongoing work on The Flickerman a piece of applied creative research that began as an attempt to explore the possibilities offered to writers by working outside conventional radio networks, and has developed into a piece of as-live, collaborative, open-source story telling.

Bolin, Göran (2010): ‘Digitization, Multi-Platform Texts and Audience Reception’,

by Göran Bolin

in Popular Communication, vol. 8(1): 72-83.

This article reflects on the consequences of digitization for multiplatform television/media production, the ways in... more This article reflects on the consequences of digitization for multiplatform television/media production, the ways in which it affects textual expressions, and how this might have a bearing on changing audience roles. It takes its departure empirically from two Swedish examples of multiplatform production: The Truth About Marika and Labyrint, produced by SVT and TV4, respectively. It is argued that multiplatform media texts challenge our conceptions of categories such as work, text, program, etc., and, following from that, also challenge our notions of audience activity and engagement.

Character, Audience Agency and Transmedia Drama

by Elizabeth (Liz) Evans

published in 'Media, Culture and Society' March 2008 30(2)