Transmedia Storytelling 101 — Henry Jenkins http://henryjenkins.org/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.

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Henry Jenkins, Editor | William Proctor,

Associate Editor

Transmedia
Storytelling 101
March 21, 2007

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Transmedia Storytelling 101 — Henry Jenkins http://henryjenkins.org/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html

I designed this handout on transmedia

storytelling to distribute to my students.
More recently, I passed it out at a teaching
workshop at the Society for Cinema and
Media Studies. I thought it might be of value
to more of you out there in the community. CONFESSIONS OF AN ACA-FAN
Much of it builds on the discussion of that The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins
concept in Convergence Culture, though I
have updated it to reflect some more recent
developments in that space. For those who
want to dig deeper still into this concept,
check out the webcast version of the
Transmedia Entertainment panel from the
Futures of Entertainment Conference.

Transmedia Storytelling 101 Henry Jenkins

Happy to be in the mix with two other
1. Transmedia storytelling represents a authors @couldrynick and
process where integral elements of a fiction @ddbuckingham who I greatly admire as
get dispersed systematically across multiple Polity announ… https://t.co/nZGXnbvrqB
delivery channels for the purpose of creating Jul 9, 2019, 10:56 AM

a unified and coordinated entertainment

experience. Ideally, each medium makes it Henry Jenkins
own unique contribution to the unfolding of
i @RukminiPande addresses how we
the story. So, for example, in The Matrix
would do fandom studies differently if we
franchise, key bits of information are
placed race at its center https://t.co
conveyed through three live action films, a
/JsmOPCbddD
series of animated shorts, two collections of
Jun 18, 2019, 3:14 PM
comic book stories, and several video
games. There is no one single source or ur-
Follow @henryjenkins
text where one can turn to gain all of the
information needed to comprehend the
Matrix universe.
Recent Posts
2. Transmedia storytelling reflects the
economics of media consolidation or what
industry observers call "synergy." Modern Stuart Hall: Island Boy (1 of 1) by
media companies are horizontally integrated Keesha Wallace
- that is, they hold interests across a range of Jun 2, 2020

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Transmedia Storytelling 101 — Henry Jenkins http://henryjenkins.org/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html

what were once distinct media industries. A Comics and Stuff: The Interviews (4 of
media conglomerate has an incentive to 4)
spread its brand or expand its franchises May 29, 2020
across as many different media platforms as
Comics & Stuff: The Interviews (3 of 4)
possible. Consider, for example, the comic
May 28, 2020
books published in advance of the release
of such films as Batman Begins and Comics and Stuff: The Interviews (2 of
Superman Returns by DC ( owned by Warner 4)
Brothers, the studio that released these May 26, 2020
films). These comics provided back-story
Comics & Stuff: The Interviews (1 of 4)
which enhanced the viewer's experience of
May 25, 2020
the film even as they also help to publicize
the forthcoming release (thus blurring the Return and Renewal: Star Trek: Picard
line between marketing and entertainment). (3 of 3) Djoymi Baker & Roberta
The current configuration of the Pearson
entertainment industry makes transmedia May 22, 2020
expansion an economic imperative, yet the
most gifted transmedia artists also surf these
marketplace pressures to create a more
expansive and immersive story than would
have been possible otherwise.
Publications
3. Most often, transmedia stories are based
not on individual characters or specific plots
but rather complex fictional worlds which can
sustain multiple interrelated characters and
their stories. This process of world-building
encourages an encyclopedic impulse in both
readers and writers. We are drawn to master
what can be known about a world which
always expands beyond our grasp. This is a
very different pleasure than we associate
with the closure found in most classically
constructed narratives, where we expect to
leave the theatre knowing everything that is
required to make sense of a particular story.

4. Extensions may serve a variety of different

functions. For example, the BBC used radio

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dramas to maintain audience interest in

Doctor Who during almost a decade during
which no new television episodes were
produced. The extension may provide
insight into the characters and their
motivations (as in the case of websites
surrounding Dawson's Creek and Veronica
Mars which reproduced the imaginary
correspondence or journals of their feature
characters), may flesh out aspects of the
fictional world (as in the web version of the
Daily Planet published each week by DC
comics during the run of its 52 series to
"report" on the events occurring across its
superhero universe), or may bridge between
events depicted in a series of sequels (as in
the animated series - The Clone Wars -
which was aired on the Cartoon Network to
bridge over a lapse in time between Star
Wars II and III). The extension may add a
greater sense of realism to the fiction as a
whole (as occurs when fake documents and
time lines were produced for the website
associated with The Blair Witch Project or in
a different sense, the documentary films and
cd-roms produced by James Cameron to
provide historical context for Titanic).

5. Transmedia storytelling practices may

expand the potential market for a property
by creating different points of entry for
different audience segments. So, for
example, Marvel produces comic books
which tell the Spider-man story in ways that
they think will be particularly attractive to
female (a romance comic, Mary Jane Loves
Spiderman) or younger readers (coloring
book or picture book versions of the classic
comicbook stories ). Similarly, the strategy

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may work to draw viewers who are

comfortable in a particular medium to
experiment with alternative media platforms
(as in the development of a Desperate
Housewives game designed to attract older
female consumers into gaming).

6. Ideally, each individual episode must be

accessible on its own terms even as it makes
a unique contribution to the narrative system
as a whole. Game designer Neil Young
coined the term, "additive comprehension,"
to refer to the ways that each new texts adds
a new piece of information which forces us
to revise our understanding of the fiction as
a whole. His example was the addition of an
image of an origami unicorn to the director's
cut edition of Bladerunner, an element which
raised questions about whether the
protagonist might be a replicant. Transmedia
producers have found it difficult to achieve
the delicate balance between creating
stories which make sense to first time
viewers and building in elements which
enhance the experience of people reading
across multiple media.

7. Because transmedia storytelling requires a

high degree of coordination across the
different media sectors, it has so far worked
best either in independent projects where
the same artist shapes the story across all of
the media involved or in projects where
strong collaboration (or co-creation) is
encouraged across the different divisions of
the same company. Most media franchises,
however, are governed not by co-creation
(which involves conceiving the property in
transmedia terms from the outset) but rather

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licensing (where the story originates in one

media and subsequent media remain
subordinate to the original master text.)

8. Transmedia storytelling is the ideal

aesthetic form for an era of collective
intelligence. Pierre Levy coined the term,
collective intelligence, to refer to new social
structures that enable the production and
circulation of knowledge within a networked
society. Participants pool information and tap
each others expertise as they work together
to solve problems. Levy argues that art in an
age of collective intelligence functions as a
cultural attractor, drawing together like-
minded individuals to form new knowledge
communities. Transmedia narratives also
function as textual activators - setting into
motion the production, assessment, and
archiving information. The ABC television
drama, Lost, for example, flashed a dense
map in the midst of one second season
episode: fans digitized a freeze-frame of the
image and put it on the web where together
they extrapolated about what it might reveal
regarding the Hanso Corporation and its
activities on the island. Transmedia
storytelling expands what can be known
about a particular fictional world while
dispersing that information, insuring that no
one consumer knows everything and insure
that they must talk about the series with
others (see, for example, the hundreds of
different species featured in Pokemon or Yu-
Gi-O). Consumers become hunters and
gatherers moving back across the various
narratives trying to stitch together a coherent
picture from the dispersed information.

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9. A transmedia text does not simply

disperse information: it provides a set of
roles and goals which readers can assume
as they enact aspects of the story through
their everyday life. We might see this
performative dimension at play with the
release of action figures which encourage
children to construct their own stories about
the fictional characters or costumes and role
playing games which invite us to immerse
ourselves in the world of the fiction. In the
case of Star Wars, the Boba Fett action
figure generated consumer interest in a
character who had otherwise played a small
role in the series, creating pressure for
giving that character a larger plot function in
future stories.

10. The encyclopedic ambitions of

transmedia texts often results in what might
be seen as gaps or excesses in the
unfolding of the story: that is, they introduce
potential plots which can not be fully told or
extra details which hint at more than can be
revealed. Readers, thus, have a strong
incentive to continue to elaborate on these
story elements, working them over through
their speculations, until they take on a life of
their own. Fan fiction can be seen as an
unauthorized expansion of these media
franchises into new directions which reflect
the reader's desire to "fill in the gaps" they
have discovered in the commercially
produced material.

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 Spring Break.... Bring Me the Head of Henry ...

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