Transmedia Storytelling

Jason Mittell

Transmedia Storytelling 101

A process where integral elements of afiction get dispersed systematically across multipledelivery channels for the purpose of a unified andcoordinated entertainment experience.

- Henry Jenkins

The Feature Film –Ur- or Core Text

1st extension / Transmedia

Storytelling AND

Core Text

ARG Comicbook

Merchandise

Fan extensions:

Fic/

Television and the Unified Experience

• Jenkins: Transmedia storytelling is the continuous telling of one story across multiple platforms where each platform provides those narrative elements it is best suited for

• Mittell: Television’s industry, narrative forms, audience interaction forces core text as “Mothership” Core text remains central

Transmedia

And Paratexts

Transmedia

Extensions

“Standard” Paratexts”:

Discussing/commenting on/hyping…a ”core text”

Orienting Paratexts:

Explaining/helping to make sense of/clarifying the “core”

Text

Transmedia Narrative Expansions

!!!

Balanced Transmedia Storytelling

Unbalanced TransmediaStorytelling

Protect the Mothership:A Question of Maintenance

Transmedia Texts that are Paratexts derived from an Ur-text do have a built in audience. To please and maintain this audience while establishing a new fan base is of key importance to the industry. The original fans have a distinct set of expectations: Lore / Conventions / Storyworld

Managerial Implications• Engage multiple audiences from different

generations, keep existing, build new• Extend the life cycle of the brand – provide

“gap” satisfaction• Goal: Create an ecosystem for your brand

• The popularity of outlying media MUST increase the popularity of the Televisual Mothership

Transmedia History…

• Retellings

…It’s All Happened Before…

• New Episodes

It will All Happen Again!

• Canonical Integration

So Say We All!

• Diegetic Extension

Spatial Storytelling

Telling The StoryCentrifugal Transmedia

All TM expands the narrative universe outward

Centripetal Transmedia

All TM informs characters/themes/motifs

Genre, Narrative, Base Motif often dictate the Transmedia- Storytelling

Fan-GeneratedTransmedia

Fandom: Live Long and Prosper

• Forensic Fandom

• Blue-print Culture

• Fan-producers (Fan-Fic, Remixes, Vids)

School of Thrones

Non-canonical, comical, takes motifs and themes.

What-Is Transmedia• Canonical Extension• Scatters narrative elements• Coordinated Precision• Promoting

clarity/understanding• Explanatory• Promoting product

(appreciation)• Forensic fandom• Canonical coordination• Narrative integration

What-If Transmedia

• Hypothetical extensions, transmutations

• Imagined alternative realities/plots/sub-plots

• Connects lore/mood/characters

• Non-canonical plots

• Character fidelity

• Mood & tone

Protecting the Mothership

• What-is expansions can erode and thereby threaten the strength and centrality of the mothership. For Televisual Transmedia Motherships, What-if expansions may be more beneficial

• While programs tend to (for the most part) generate either centrifugally or centripetally (depending on such elements as genre), what-if and what-is are not stark opposits but rather tendencies

Have your reading prepared for next class!!!

Hint! Hint! Hint!