Notes on Henry Jenkins
Revenge of the Oragami Unicorn: Seven Core
Concepts of Transmedia Story tellinG:
Henry Jenkins talks about Transmedia story
telling.
Frank Rose talks about Deep Media
Frank Rose and Friends on how the Internet is
changing Storytelling:movies, video, games,ads
need to get updates and review this blog
Christy Dena Talks about Cross Media
Check out this sight and begin to read the blogs
- she is doing a PHD in Transmedia.
Everybody is currently trying to understand, the
interplay between different media systems and
delivery platforms (and of course different media
audiences and modes of engagement.)
Check out these sights: Narrative Design
Exploratorium (http://narrativedesign.org/)
has been running a great series of interviews
with transmedia designers and storytellers) and
websites created by transmedia producers, such as
Jeff Gomez, to explain the concept to their
clients.
Check out:
Six years ago Matrix introduced shocked fans to
the concept of transmedia story telling, today
fans have an expectation of some kind of
transmedia link to their favourite programs.
Henry Jenkins points to fan unrest at the hit TV
sho Flash Forwards failure to provide fans within
indepth transmedia product.Henry Jenkins goes on
to question whether we have now reached a point
where media franchises are going to be judged by
quality of transmedia product they bring with
them.
Henry Jenkins defines
"Transmedia storytelling represents a process
where integral elements of a fiction get
dispersed systematically across multiple delivery
channels for the purpose of creating a unified
and coordinated entertainment experience.
Ideally, each medium makes its own unique
contribution to the unfolding of the story."
Henry Jenkins accepts that this model of a
structured and coordinated model of transmedia
story telling can be complicated and pushed out
of shape by the impact of fan response to the
transmedia product that they are experiencing.
This response can take the form of unauthorised
extention to text / script. Henry Jenkins also
invites us to explore the tention between between
the franchies value of diversity over coheresion.
Henry Jenkins identifies narrative as only one
kind of transmedia spectrum. He identifies a
range of others "including branding, spectacle,
performance, games, perhaps others - which can
operate either independently or may be combined
within any given entertainment experience", all
which he states must be considered when thinking
about transmedia entertainmnet.
He also identifies there be a difference
betweentransmedia storytelling and transmedia
branding, e.g star wars breakfast cereal does not
take the star wars story any further!
we need to distinguish between adaptation, which
reproduces the original narrative with minimum
changes into a new medium and is essentially
redundant to the original work, and extension,
which expands our understanding of the original
by introducing new elements into the fiction.
Derrick Johnson has made strong arguments that
the current transmedia moment needs to be
understood in relation to a much longer history
of different strategies for structuring and
deploying media franchises.
Find out more about Derick Johnson...
IN response to the argument that Felix the Cat
Cartoon Character is an early example of
Transmedia character. Hery Jenkins:
We might well distinguish Felix as a character
who is extracted from any specific narrative
context (given each of his cartoons is self-
contained and episodic) as opposed to a modern
transmedia figure who carries with him or her the
timeline and the world depicted on the "mother
ship," the primary work which anchors the
franchise - so its not about a character
appearing across a range of media , but a
cohesive story that covers a range of of media
out lets each adding to the one before it.
1. Spreadability vs. Drillability
Henry Jenkins sees Spreadability and Drillability
as key elements to Transmedia story telling.
Spreadability relates to those consuming the
transmedia product to use social networks to
activly engage in the process of circulating the
media content and so raise its economic value and
cultural worth. So this is more that just telling
people about it and spreading the word , its
about consumers activley pushing the media out to
other consumers to view and ehgage with.
pread-or-drill
JAson Mitchell in his seminal essay on
drillability points to the fact that for
tranmedial product that has a more complex story
structure it is often the consumers ability to
drill down into story and not their ability to
spread it across You tube that is the key to
there success.
"Narrative complexity and drillable engagement is
not an entirely new phenomenon, but rather an
acceleration by degree. Highly serialized genres
like soap operas have always bred fan archivists
and textual experts, while sports fans have a
long history of drilling down statistically and
collecting artifacts to engage more deeply with a
team or player. Contemporary examples are notable
for both the digital tools that have enabled fans
to collectively apply their forensic efforts, and
the demands that mainstream network programs make
upon their viewers to pay attention and connect
the narrative dots."
The opposition between spreadable and drillable
shouldn’t be thought of as a hierarchy, but
rather as opposing vectors of cultural
engagement. Spreadable media encourages
horizontal ripples, accumulating eyeballs without
necessarily encouraging more long-term
engagement. Drillable media typically engage far
fewer people, but occupy more of their time and
energies in a vertical descent into a text’s
complexities
--
James Gbesan
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