Transmedia Storytelling - Lecture at the sLab - OCAD (Toronto) - July 2009

1. Transmedia storytelling
Narrative strategies, fictional worlds and branding
in contemporary media production
Carlos A. Scolari - University of Vic / University Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain)
carlos.scolari@gmail.com
www.digitalismo.com - www.hipermediaciones.com

2. New users/readers/viewers/consumers
• If ‘we’re are modelled by the media’ (McLuhan), then digital
interactive media have created a new user/reader that deals
with:
– Interactivity
– Networks
– Fragmentation
– Multi-screens
– Fast adaptation to interfaces
• If every text creates its reader (Umberto Eco) and every
interface creates its user ... ¿How are ‘old media’ like
television constructing their viewers? In other words: Who is
contemporary TV talking to?

3. Paleo/neo/hyperTV
• In 1983 Umberto Eco introduced the opposition between paleo
and neotelevision…
• Paleotelevision (1955 - 1980):
– Public service (BBC, RAI, etc.)
– Pedagogical discourse
– Fiction / Information
• Neotelevision (1980 - 2000?):Public service (BBC, RAI, etc.)
– Private channels (Canale 5, etc.)
– Fragmentation (clips) / Channel surfing
– TV closer to audience
– Mix fiction - information
• This opposition today is almost useless for theoretical purposes.
I prefer to talk about hypertelevision. Let’s see an identikit
of hypertelevision.

4. From paleo to hypertelevision

5. From paleo to hypertelevision

6. From paleo to hypertelevision

7. Hypertelevision
• Identikit of hypertelevision:
– Multiplication of narrative programs.

8. Hypertelevision
• Identikit of hypertelevision:
– Multiplication of narrative programs.
– Screen fragmentation.

9. Hypertelevision
• Identikit of hypertelevision:
– Multiplication of narrative programs.
– Screen fragmentation.
– Acceleration of rhythm.

10. Hypertelevision
• Identikit of hypertelevision:
– Multiplication of narrative programs.
– Screen fragmentation.
– Acceleration of rhythm.
– Intertextuality.

11. Hypertelevision
• Identikit of hypertelevision:
– Multiplication of narrative programs.
– Screen fragmentation.
– Acceleration of rhythm.
– Intertextuality.
– Complexity of narrative and transmedia storytelling.

12. Definition(s)
• First mention: Technology Review (January 15, 2003)
• Transmedia stories at the most basic level ‘are stories told
across multiple media. At the present time, the most
significant stories tend to flow across multiple media
platforms’ (Jenkins et al., 2006).
• Semantic galaxy:
– cross media (Bechmann Petersen, 2006)
– multiple platforms (Jeffery-Poulter, 2003)
– hybrid media (Boumans, 2004)
– intertextual commodity (Marshall, 2004)
– transmedial worlds (Klastrup & Tosca, 2004)
– transmedial interactions (Bardzell et al., 2007)
– multimodality (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001)
– intermedia (Higgins, 1966).

13. Definition(s)
Transmedia storytelling ≠ Intersemiotic translation
Jenkins Jakobson/Eco
⇔
Let’s see an example of Transmedia Storytelling…

15. Television

16. Television
Comics

17. Television
Comics
Books

18. Television
Comics
Books
Webisodes

19. Television
Comics
Books
Webisodes
Mobile game

20. Television
Comics
Books
Webisodes
Mobile game
Videogame

21. Television
Comics
Books
Webisodes
Mobile game
Videogame
Mobisodes

22. Card game

23. Card game
McFarlane Toys

24. Card game
McFarlane Toys
Complete kit

25. 24
Timeline
Upgrade:
December 2008

26. Anything else?

27. Anything else?
Yes! User-generated contents! --> Prosumer

31. User-generated contents
• More examples of UGC (we need a taxonomy of them!)

32. Implicit consumers
• If every text constructs its reader, them transmedia storytelling
is constructing a multilayer consumer(s).

33. Strategies
Strategies:
• Creation of interstitial micro-stories
• Creation of parallel stories --> evolution --> spin-offs
• Creation of peripheral stories (satellites) --> evolution -->
spin-offs
• Creation of user-generated-content platforms (fan-fiction)

34. Taxonomy
Taxonomy:
• TV-centered transmedia storytelling (24, Lost, etc.)
• Book-centered transmedia storytelling (Harry Potter, etc.)
• Comic-centered transmedia storytelling (Batman,
Spiderman, etc.)
• Cinema-centered transmedia storytelling (The Matrix, etc.)
• This classification should be discussed! The ‘media-
centrality’ may change (The first text? The most successful?
The most important from a narrative perspective?)

35. Transmedia storytelling is not just a semiotic affair:
Transmedia storytelling --> More $$$$$$

37. Branding
• Holocron: FileMaker DB with more than 30,000 entries
(characters, planets, weapons, etc.) for supporting the
franchising business.
• In the past 31 years…
– Star Wars movies: $4 billion / Merchandise: $15 billion.
– “Careful nurture of the Star Wars canon—thousands of
years of story time, running through all the bits and
pieces of merchandise—has kept the franchise popular
for decades”.
• From product placement to transmedia storytelling. The
brand is not inside the fiction anymore, rather the fiction is
the brand.
• Transmedia storytelling was not invented by George Lucas…

38. • Transmedia storytelling is not new.
• Disney: may be the first modern
mass-experience of transmedia
storytelling (first construction
of a multiplatform narrative
universe).
• Why is it so important today?
– Digitalization
– Media explosion.
– User-generated content
platforms and culture.
– Hypertextual experience
makes easier to follow
different media.

39. Research agenda
• To learn more about TS narrative structures: analyzing the structure will
increase the possibilities of creating new stories (Propp, 1928).
• To analyse implicit consumers. This classical semiotic issue could be very
helpful for producers, scriptwriters and media programmers interested in
producing complex textual structures intended for a broad spectrum of
consumers.
• To analyse fictional world expansion strategies.
• To analyse transmedia consumers.

40. Gracias! And may the Force (and the CTU) be with you!