Telling stories across multiple media – transmedia storytelling – allows content that’s right-sized, right-timed and right-placed to form a larger, more profitable, cohesive and rewarding experience. (tstoryteller.com) In transmedia storytelling, the stories are told differently however, they pertain to a universal topic in order to draw an audience to follow anything pertaining to that topic.
In Henry Jenkin’s Convergence Culture Chapter 3, he explains, “A transmedia story unfolds across multiple media platforms, with each new text making a distinctive and valuable contribution to the whole. In the ideal form of transmedia storytelling, each medium does what it does best- so that a story might be introduced in a film, expanded through television, novel, and comics…”
In light of the holidays(which are approaching way too fast), Christmas is a great example of transmedia storytelling. I remember the time when my siblings and I were kids and we would leave some homemade cookies on the table for Santa Claus when he comes down the chimney while we’re sleeping. We weren’t scared of an old man coming into our house at night because we new he would be leaving gifts for us to open in the morning.
Telling stories across multiple media – transmedia storytelling – allows content that’s right-sized, right-timed and right-placed to form a larger, more profitable, cohesive and rewarding experience.
Although Christmas is celebrated in different ways, even if you don’t celebrate it, you know gifts are given and received and most importantly, who Santa Claus is. The story of Christmas and Santa Claus is spread through the use of transmedia like film, television, and even books. Though the story plots are all different, they all surround the same concept.
Transmedia storytelling does not only requires a good understanding of media planning and media habits (where, how and when do people interact with all the different platforms) but also, one needs to have a good understanding of the narrative you are trying to create (Lidstone, Moody, Edwards, & Decool, 2012).
Franchises use the idea of Christmas in efforts to increase their audience because so many people have this understanding of it’s narrative. So, when the holidays come around, there are ads and commercials portraying families and gift-giving everywhere, cable channels have Christmas movies and cartoons on and Christmas stories are read in classrooms all around, engaging audience interaction.
"Transmedia represents a strategy for telling stories where there is a particularly diverse set of characters, where the world is richly realized, and where there is a strong back-story or mythology that can extend beyond the specific episodes being depicted in the film or television series."
Jenkins, Henry, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (New York and London: New York University Press, 2006). Page 96.
Jenkins, Henry. "Seven Myths About Transmedia Storytelling Debunked." Fast Company. 8 Apr. 11. Web. 12 Nov. 2014.
<http://www.fastcompany.com/1745746/seven-myths-about-transmedia-storytelling-debunked>.
"How Can Storytelling Play a Role in the Communication of Concept Brands?" Blog by Milan. 14 Nov. 2013. Web. 12 Nov. 2014.
<https://milanvaassen.wordpress.com/2013/11/14/how-can-storytelling-play-a-role-in-the-communication-of-concept-brands/#more-184>.
"Transmedia Storytelling." Transmedia Storyteller. Web. 12 Nov. 2014.
<http://www.tstoryteller.com/transmedia-storytelling>.
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