Rebooting Transmedia
Yesterday, I wrote a rant. It was directed to Mr. Transmedia Producer. Today, I want to apologize to him.
As some of you correctly observed, my rant was directed to Jeff Gomez. Well, that’s not entirely true – I was thinking of him as well as all of those who do similar work. However, as Jeff is leading the conversation, Mr. Transmedia Producer effectively referred to him. So, Jeff, I am sorry for calling you out in such a way. I still stand by what wrote, but hope that you can understand the spirit in which it was written.
I am angry and frustrated. I’m worried by how so many working in transmedia feel marginalized. I’m bothered by the fact that people who have done amazing work, seminal work, are abandoning the term. Now, I don’t care what people call their work or how they promote themselves, that’s a personal decision, but I do care that good work and innovative work may be overlooked or overshadowed because of it. I’m saddened by the fact that much of this is because of the way you defined transmedia for the PGA credit.
I’ve talked about this before, but there is something wrong when a professional organization systematically denies a significant portion of the people working in the field.
That changed much of the conversation from why and how to what. It took support and turned it into debate. It turned advocates into defenders and denyers. It created confusion when it should have provided clarity. And it gave birth to a whole slew of gurus who have a limited view of what transmedia is.
It’s time to reboot the conversation, to go back to where we were while still building on what we’ve done. It’s time to change the definition to something that we can all share and understand…. a definition that is as useful as it is usable.
In the comments and conversations spawned by my rant, Mike Monello & Brian Clark proposed an important distinction: transmedia vs. transmedia method. I encourage you to read (and contribute to!) the comments there, but here’s an overview from Brian (@gmdclark) on twitter.
transmedia storytelling: telling a story across multiple platforms by original design
transmedia methods: the tools transmedia storytellers use that others can use as well
He goes on to explain that most of the “transmedia” out there is really just using transmedia methods to extend an existing property. And you know what, that is ok. It doesn’t change the quality of the work.
It’s a brilliant distinction and something that I think many of us were thinking on some level. I’m so grateful that they were able to distill it for us. What I appreciate the most about it is that it changes the conversation from “what is transmedia?” to “what are the methods we’re using and how can we use them to bring stories to life?”
And, really, isn’t that a much better conversation to have.
This was a followup to Rebooting Transmedia
and I have since followed up with Defining Discussions
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Would the concerns expressed here, and in your previous post, change significantly if the focus of project pitch weren’t studio executives but venture philanthropists? Like this idea:
http://www.tcgcircle.org/2011/04/what-if-there-wa-a-giving-pledge-for-theatre/
Its all a “method”..either of method of “creation” or a method or “extention.”. and I rarely see any true transmedia ips that have each mediums “core” benefits truly examined and offered. The use of the word “story” is the main problem that this blog crowd suffers from.;)
I think @vpisteve has it right (see previous thread). The average IQ of presenters bandying about the term, “transmedia” has dropped precipitously over the past couple of years. The franchise-story-world-brand-extension idea has taken hold, and from here on out, pushing back against received definitions is only going to get harder.
But this shouldn’t bother anyone. I agree with Brian about the distinction between storytelling and methods, but I wonder if this nuance might speak to a pretty serious issue that’s always been lurking under the surface here: is there really a reason to use the term “transmedia” at all in contexts where we’re just talking about methods? I think Mike addressed this earlier in the previous thread vis-a-vis calling advertising advertising. Where does the notion of “transmedia methods” begin and end?
Like, for example: we could retroactively tag Roman Catholicism as a multiplatform storyworld (books, buildings, clothing lines, action figures, collectibles, events, long-arc narrative) employing transmedia methods, and make a distinction between it and, say, Cathy’s Book, on the grounds of authorial intent, but that would seem a little odd.
The point is, there was some utility in the word when we started down the road of working through the “telling of a story across multiple platforms by original design,” but now we find ourselves in a place where, for various career- and market-oriented reasons, the term has basically expanded to include just about everything. Put differently, our media landscape now is inherently transmedial (and in some important ways always has been), so there seems to be a kind of redundancy to using the word at all. Which is why its main usage right now seems to be as a way to raise VC interest for branding and marketing startups and/or film projects.
On the other hand, I just used the #transmedia hashtag yesterday to refer to a friend’s project (http://technohistory.net), which was, as it happens, conceived of from the beginning as multiplatform/multicontext. So go figure.
“…there was some utility in the word when we started down the road of working through the “telling of a story across multiple platforms by original design,” but now we find ourselves in a place where, for various career- and market-oriented reasons, the term has basically expanded to include just about everything.”
Even your mom! (sorry, couldn’t resist :)
I agree though – it seems the term is being used to describe just about anything that is interconnected in some way now. I even came across this tweet earlier today:
“I’m starting to look at the Marvel & DC Universes as a form of transmedia, even though only comics: organized delivery of related stories.”
This is the kind of idea about transmedia that people are getting… somehow… from somewhere…
We can rant, debate, rave and discuss what “transmedia” or multi-platform storytelling really is or should be, but I don’t think it’ll do much good until, as Steve mentioned in the previous article, some mainstream success comes along to help define that.
So, what’s the next step? We want creators encouraged to focus on consistency in their storyworlds and productions, but also encouraged toward good storytelling, and how to do it consistently across platforms.
i did point out months ago, that “transmedia” like “virtual worlds” before it ,would be “market memed” and “buzz blogged” into a bubble of hype with only one of two “winners”…
this btw is the way of the techmedium. which can only “gamify” to a binary lose-win scenario…
so beware all yee “liberal arts writers” sediuced by the techne, there be sharks here…. aka hollywood eating itself in yet another blind feeding frenzy that never has anything to do with the academics who blog/speak at conferences, but only how soon the 250k they get will be lost and given to an intern, or nephew.;)
New diagram!
…in which I try to visualize these very different scales of harmonized-platform experience designing (or whatever), without saying “transmedia”:
http://4dfiction.com/transmedia-minus-transmedia
I titled this post Rebooting Transmedia for a reason, I don’t think all is lost. Transmedia has been misused and co-opted, sure, but, as Larry points out, we all expected this. We were talking about the buzzword issues last year at SXSW before the PGA credit was even announced.
The term still has meaning and it still has relevance. The issue, as I see it, is that the leading proponents/advocates/influencers are using the same word to describe different things. Though we share some very key ideas, we’re having a difficult time communicating them effectively (as a collective whole). That’s why we’re seeing so much misunderstanding & misuse.
All we need to do is reboot the term. We have that power and we have that influence. Now we just need a mutual understanding. How hard can that be?
It’s this hard. Stuff like this blog post 6 months ago (cross-posted to Forbes, no less). Plus look at all the “Brilliant!” “Genius!!” comments to the post, and this is exactly why I think the battle is lost. It’s only gotten worse since then.
from what i read online… cause i dont get any invites to any conferences anymore..lol… the problem is not in the words “trans or media”: but in “story”
a story has a very traditional structure that defines it as an entity…
they IMO only are only part of a transmedia entity…
i have used the word “conceit” for years to more accurately describe the entities overall being.
“star wars”– a war in space–a conceit
“star trek”- wagon train in space- etc.
“matrix” — vr controlled by machines..etc.
“transmedia storytelling”– IMO- that’s the weakest link—pun intended.
transmedia design.. transmedia construction transmedia methods…
of course “multimedia” reigned supreme once.. replaced by “new media” and then “digital media” which of course in other blog post circle jerks… has been called NOT ENOUGH anymore..lol (adweek)
creative producers Do get to “create” “transmedia entities”.. the real questions have always been about financing them…being able to afford al those “mediums”..
the internet did change the distribution cost issues… but not the monetizations returns issues… since with every dream of the long tail, their is the reality of too many tales….:)
Brooke — just to play devil’s advocate: you ended your post by saying that the really important conversation to have here is the one that asks, “what are the methods we’re using and how can we use them to bring stories to life?” So why does a struggle to re-re-co-opt the term “transmedia” matter? To me, it’s kind of like getting engaged in a discussion about what “art” is — these kinds of terms inherently mean different things to different people, and that’s a normal state of affairs. So why should we spend our time fighting for a specific definition and trying to constrain the meaning of a term (and prohibit meanings that we don’t approve of) when we could perhaps more productively focus our energy on just what you suggested — bringing stories to life, thinking and working through design questions, and so on?
I just read “transmedia environment” on twitter. I actually like the sound of that, as it implies a larger system which could be implemented as marketing, storytelling, teaching, playing – each an experience potentially spanning multiple *harmonized* platforms. A transmedia environment could be a storyworld, or a major profitable franchise, but it must be composed of related and consistent components.
Some argue that “transmedia” doesn’t necessarily require a story; or perhaps any game. I’d argue that it at least requires interaction of some form – the consumer would be prompted to choose to traverse from one media platform to another, any number of times, in order to consume a ‘thread’ of the experience.
Transmedia Marketing? Transmedia Storytelling? Transmedia Education?
They all serve different purposes, provide vastly different content, even their ultimate goals are different, but their execution, their frameworks are all similar.
“Transmedia” can be the future of marketing. Why not? It’s a methodology, an intent, a process of presenting a harmonized experience over multiple platforms…
whether it’s a story, a storyworld, a series of advertisements, or educational lessons.
Personally, as a consumer, I don’t really care if it’s marketing something or it’s just for the sake of art, but I’d like to see more transmedia storytelling – tell stories! Involve me, entertain me, educate me, enlighten me in the process. “Make stuff” that I’ll enjoy and remember. Whether it’s just a single platform or spans multiple – doesn’t really matter to me.
Success of an experience isn’t based on the number of platforms used.
For me, it’s how well everything comes together as a whole and how it speaks to me, personally. That’s what I enjoy as a consumer. It just so happens that these days, experiences that incorporate newer technology and multiple platforms within my real world, engaging me personally – that’s what gets my attention more. But that’s just me.
@remotedevice – I’m not suggesting that we define the term. I’m suggesting, instead, that we “reboot” the term to refer not to projects but to methods.
That said, I do like (and would support) an understanding that stating that something was a transmedia property meant that the property was transmedia in origin.
So Tron or Star Wars or Avatar would not be transmedia. However, all three have utilized transmedia methods.
I think it was @goonth who mentioned that transmedia is an adjective not a noun, which fits nicely with your project versus method distinction.
For me it comes down to asking throughout the process, “Are you TELLING a story or are you SELLING a story?”
I’m also currently trying to formulate a distinction personally that deals with whether the storytelling involves participation, immediate experience (in the sense Hakim Bey uses the term) and whether the experience lies closer to ritual than simulation. All storytelling is simulation on some level, but if participation in the simulation leads to immediate experience and not to the reinforcement of the simulacra of the “brand” or “world” or the “Spectacle” then you are using transmedia methods, else you are just franchising.
Although I keep coming back to @remotedevice’s statement a few months ago about all these questions about what transmedia is and isn’t ultimately being about forms of FICTION.
From a programming sense, I’d also add that if you must think of Transmedia as a noun, you should think of it as a CLASS object made up of an almost infinite number of member functions (methods!) that can be utilized when calling an instance of the class into existence. This would bridge the gap and define Transmedia and transmedia methods simultaneously. A 21st Century Art form needs a 21st Century definition.
#include
int main(){
Transmedia t;
t.ARG();
t.twitter();
t.foodtruck();
t.urbanGame();
// etc, etc, etc
return 0;
}
>From a programming sense, I’d also add that if you must think of Transmedia as a noun, you should think of it as a CLASS object made up of an almost infinite number of member functions (methods!) that can be utilized when calling an instance of the class into existence. This would bridge the gap and define Transmedia and transmedia methods simultaneously. A 21st Century Art form needs a 21st Century definition.
#include
int main(){
Transmedia t;
t.ARG();
t.twitter();
t.foodtruck();
t.urbanGame();
// etc, etc, etc
return 0;
}
21st century eh? time will tell.
wow.. that about sums it up.. humanity dead.
slaves to the machine…
what stories do computers tell?
#include metaphor.h
#include senseofhumor.h
NovySan: LOL!
Brooke: The problem with this postulation is the fact that the term Transmedia Storytelling has been usurped, along with the singular Transmedia, to mean franchising. Just saying that something uses transmedia methods won’t work, as most people will just assume you mean they’re using franchising methods.
@novysan — what, are you like some kind of Media Lab person or something?
re: The Postulation: We’ve seen the same thing happen with ARGs — if you’ll look around you’ll see people in all sorts of domains (education, public policy, entertainment, etc) tossing around “ARG” in a million different ways. Collaborative production games get called ARGs now, as do achievements-oriented badge-gathering level-up games, alongside coordinated marketing ventures and the “real” ARGs that we know and love. There’s really no fighting this blurring of meaning: people grab onto these terms based on their own sometimes limited understandings of their origins, and then use them as ways to communicate to their peers about what they’re doing. The terms end up losing their precision, but they still have utility — it’s just an increasingly context-specific kind of utility.
Maybe one of the things we can chew on here is whether strict typologies can really hold water in a world where people are constantly forking off one another’s ideas in unpredictable and uncontrollable ways. Even in the realm of what we might agree to be a “real” ARG or “real” transmedia project, there’s so much variability that it’s hard to imagine ever being able to maintain a strict set of definitions. I think that’s a good thing… ie, if a term works for you in your context to get your project going or to get people engaging with it, then great. If not, don’t take it personally: everything gets swept up into the voracious culturemonster eventually. It’s just how this civilization rolls.
So, let’s take this to a practical level. The PGA Credit. By meeting their definition (and other requirements), you are entitled to membership which provides you with benefits such as insurance and accreditation. Now, their definition favors franchises. Now, say you create an transmedia experience from the ground up. It’s platform agnostic – with the story unfolding over multiple platforms websites, social media, mobiles apps, found artifacts, live events, etc. It reaches an even larger audience and nears “mainstream” status in part due to a weekly video update that airs on television or hulu/netflix/etc.
(something I think both you & I have dreamed of, Steve, in some fashion or another)
Are you suggesting then, that the producers shouldn’t be eligible for PGA credit – at least not through Transmedia because transmedia is franchise?
I’m not alone in thinking that we’re going to see some really incredible innovations in the way people engage with stories over the next few years. Natively built transmedia experiences are not going to be unusual. And they aren’t going to all be alternate reality games – some of the ideas I’ve heard and projects that people are building up to have just blown my mind.
It seems wise to me that, as proponents and practitioners of this sort of stuff, that we need to take a bit of a lead. We don’t all need to be advocates and we don’t all need to be on the same page, but all of this confusion is not helping. And it’s certainly not helping the people in the various support institutions adapt to the changes.
If we, as the practitioners, want to have a voice in how they change, we’re going to need to speak up sooner rather than later or we’ll see more institutional support for transmedia as franchises.
Which was the original vision of & what I wanted from TAG – and why I left when the vision switched to little more than a job oriented message board. Work (and examples of good works) is important, yes!, but we need a voice and a collective voice would be better. Which is why we need a definition that works for the collective. ARG is not it. Transmedia is the closest we have and all is not lost! Not yet, anyway.
Note: I made this same argument back in the day for ARGs and everyone was all “nonono we can’t define it! let’s just see where it goes!” And, well, as @remotedevice points out, it went. How many times do you hear people saying they want a “real ARG” – if we had stood up, maybe a “real ARG” designer could have gotten some funding instead of that collaborative production game that called itself an ARG.
To Brooke, Brian, Mike and Steve:
Transmedia may be an ugly word, and it will almost certainly fade and fall into disuse. But perhaps not. Perhaps it proves to be memetic and will multiply change and adapt. In any case, currently it’s very useful as it describes something new and additional, distinct from ideas framed by cross-media, multimedia, digital media, new media, all of which have come before it. This discussion, triggered by Brooke’s passionate post – I wouldn’t call it a rant – on fragmenting the term is valuable because it reflects what is happening. Transmedia is becoming a container term, and in a positive sense a lot can be done with that. So Steve I don’t agree at all that its too late!
It’s possible to look at transmedia from a Hollywood perspective. With so much potential, it shouldn’t coma as a surprise that the LA-entertainment factory has picked up on it. While a system includes mass-production then that is a valid interest. And we know from the film and television output which this factory system produces that for the most part the results will be limited and repetitive. Its an industrial process, repetitive in order to reuse or best use the pipeline include distribution and delivery . So perhaps let’s just accept that there is Hollywood transmedia in the mix, just like there is Hollywood cinema. On the positive side there is indie cinema as well. But there’s something else: there is a cinema that is not US-centric, that happens on other continents and in other cultures, and which come up with stories, themes, story structures and use of cinematic techniques which are sometimes shockingly original stunningly moving. Think of Biutiful as a fusion of Mexican/Spanish sensibilities.
As transmedia goes out into the world, you have to be prepared to let it go and make mistakes. I want to see Chinese transmedia, in the same way Chinese cinema surprises and entertains, informs and allows me to reconsider my thinking about cinematic storytelling, storytelling in general, Chinese culture, the intertextuality of it all and much more. So give me Brazilian transmedia, and Chilean, and Dutch, French and South African as well! Show me Finnish projects, and Estonian, and German. And then give me transmedia creatively-led by a video game developer, one by a data-miner, a mobile-app maker, a TV-maker. Mix that up on a 3D grid of indie/corp meets national/regional/global meets media/channel/tech/platform…and now tell me that transmedia is dead! Its growing up and leaving home and about to start to do its own thing!
*sigh*
Ok, my updated current views:
I’m really starting to shy away from “transmedia” as a term I was hoping to cover at 4dfiction.com. My intent on creating that site was to become a resource for creativity in storytelling – in telling stories – and honestly the direction I see ‘transmedia’ moving (away from the “ARG” space and more towards a general connectedness of platforms, or something) is away fro my topics of interest…
Not that that’s a bad thing for the term (ymmv), but what interests me are creative methodologies, ideas, tools, and stories themselves, not so much how to keep a property, brand, franchise, storyworld, or whatever, alive by the process of incorporating multiple platforms in various ways. Sure, it can be creative, but what brought me into this creative space was, frankly, alternate reality games and that “type” of experience.
To me, it’s the A.R.G. that breathed life into this form of story telling in the 00′s, and from my side of the media fence (a “consumer”/”audience”/”player”/”whatever”) that is what’s most interesting.
Again, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the building of consistent brands and creative marketing and all that (I’m a big evangelizer of the Halo universe for one, as I’m sure is pretty clear by now) – that’s all Good.
But in the end, “transmedia” is getting less and less interesting, precisely because as a term it feels like it’s just becoming broader and broader.
So, that’s just my perspective as it stands now, for what it’s worth.
I can absolutely understand that point of view, Geoff. One of the things that I, as a creator, always appreciated about the term transmedia is that it was broad and helped me unite the various things I design under a single umbrella. Transmedia was a sort of common thread and helped me discover similarly minded folks & interesting projects. Yet, as a consumer, I gravitate to more specific sorts of things. This is OK! and no different from me preferring platformers over first person shooters, dramas over sitcoms, or ice cream over sherbert.
But where you see the term becoming more broad and all-encompassing, I actually see it becoming more limited. There were a couple of posts floating around yesterday which explicitly stated that ARGs and similar projects were not transmedia. The reasons given were that a) the stories they told were not contained to a single platform and/or b) they were not, inherently, extensions of an existing story.
I find this trend incredibly short-sighted and see it rooted in the over-emphasis of franchises as transmedia. Like Ian, I want to see more flavors of transmedia, not less.
What makes me frustrated is that, I think, many of those promoting the transmedia as franchise idea with (and within) the studios see the bigger picture and hope that this eases Hollywood into building & supporting native transmedia. They just don’t see (or didn’t anticipate) the damage that they’re doing to the term in the process and the ripples that’s creating.
Ian,
Such an inspiring post! Thanks for that!
In the end, yes, we need to realize that this small but power stream with its exciting rapids and high cliff walls around it has continued down the mountain to become a wide river, with lots of varying watercraft and attractions on the shores. And I believe that’s a good thing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for innovation and openness and creativity and not putting things in boxes.
The thing is, I truly believe that the river did fork a few miles back, and people are getting the East Fork and the West Fork confused. Some don’t even realize the fork exists at all, furthering the confusion.
At the end of the day, I guess I’d just be satisfied if the media cartographers would make note of the two.
And that I’d stop with the metaphors and get back to work. :)
It unfortunate that persons who create quality work are being denied the chance to have it acknowledged by others and being pushed under the rug because it doesn’t fit a certain mold. Unfortunately, this is true about most things in life, it is not necessarily the greats that get recognition but those that push through all the appropriate and accepted avenues. It’s sad but true.
-Bo