When first hearing the concept of transmedia storytelling, I thought I knew what it was. Upon reading further, I realized that I was completely wrong in my assumption. Being a self-proclaimed social media nerd, I thought that I knew all there was to know about social media. Unfortunately, I barely knew that this side existed.
Transmedia storytelling is a way to combine multiple media platforms around one single things. The types of things it can include is a feature film, interactive website, a TV spin off plus many more features.
After hearing this, the first thing that came to mind for me was the Bible. I am not really sure why, but, hear me out, I think it may fit. So the Bible was initially created in a time when there was no media as we know it to be today. Over the years, as technology got more advanced, things, including the Bible, turned to technology to keep current. Today, there are ebook bibles, TV shows and movies that tell the stories and apps that people can download to view the daily word. I think that this shows the impact of media to the point where now we can take things that used to be as far away from media as possible and adapt them into different platforms.
While the Bible was the first thing that came to my mind, there are certainly others that fall into the category of transmedia storytelling. These can be things like Harry Potter, Star Wars and Avatar. I do have one question though about transmedia storytelling. While we mainly focus on movies or books, can music and bands also be considered transmedia story telling? The main example that I think of with this is the Jonas Brother (I know, throwback). Back in the day, I loved the Jonas Brothers, a guilty pleasure of sorts. After their rise to fame, they came out with books, TV shows, online websites, action figures and eventually a concert movie. Does it matter the platform that it was created, or could essentially anything with a multi-platform media presence be considered transmedia storytelling?
I hadn’t really thought if anything past movies or books could use transmedia storytelling. Hate to be the one to say it but what about the Kardashians? They have their own television show, books, websites, apps, emojis.., and who knows what else. They use everything to tell just the story of their lives so I wonder if that could be considered a transmedia story.
ReplyDeleteMotion pictures are the most commonly used platforms to begin transmedia storytelling. This could unfortunately breed a commercialization of the story to the point where it's used more to increase revenue than to emotionally touch and amaze its viewers.
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