TransMEdia Storytelling: Immersing Yourself in a Story

Group 5: Maxine Macias, Heewon Kim, Marvin Pineda, Arbry Tucker

Stories can be told in a variety of ways and transmedia storytelling does exactly that but on different platforms. Transmedia storytelling enriches the consumer’s experience by being able to take a piece of media and change it on different platforms so that the consumer is left to write the story for themselves.

Essentially, transmedia storytelling is a dynamic marketing strategy to keep consumers hooked on a piece of media and to have them try to quench their thirst for more information and hopefully more “clarity” of the plots. Media makers make it their number one priority to never create closure with the audience because that means an ending, not only to the story but to the profits.

“Transmedia storytelling is fully participatory. The audience becomes actively involved, elevated to social and creative collaborators. They become stakeholders in the transmedia experience alongside the brand or cause. The unfolding story design creates the motivation to engage with other participants, seek out other parts of the story, and contribute to the narrative by adding content.”

Transmedia storytelling is essentially a way to create a community over a piece of media and be able to recreate with different plots and such in other platforms.

While transmedia storytelling tends to lean towards movies, television, books, comics, and games, with social media use on the rise it makes it even easier for avid fans to join together and create a forum of discussion about their favorite shows and movies.

For example, in “Why Heather Can Write,” where a young girl that ran a newspaper where other young kids could write stories in the theme of Harry Potter books but with their own special twist. And the reason why this is so much more engaging is because the kids actually immerse themselves in this world of fantasy and relate it to their own life.

Check out the whole presentation here.

Bibliography

Kopp, Ingrid. "The 15 Things I've Learned about Transmedia Storytelling."Indiewire. Indiewire, 14 Oct. 2013. Web. 05 Nov. 2014. <http://www.indiewire.com/article/the-15-things-ive-learned-about-transmedia-storytelling>.

Rutledge, Pamela. "What Is Transmedia Storytelling?" Transmedia Storytelling Workshops for Organizations Branding. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Nov. 2014. <http://athinklab.com/transmedia-storytelling/what-is-transmedia-storytelling/>.