Transmedia Storytelling

By definition, multimedia is the broadcast of the same story across multiple platforms, whereas transmedia is about telling multiple stories over multiple mediums. As the media landscape has evolved over time, multimedia seems to be taking a back seat to transmedia.

In multimedia, a single story is being told through multiple platforms, which basically means other formats of text, graphics, and videos. This then becomes theater, television, DVDs etc. Essentially, these products allow the audience the ability to visually see things, like motion pictures, or hear, like the radio, but it does not give the audience the ability to input their feelings and thoughts. In the Converging Media text book we can read, “in the early days of broadcasting as we have come to know it, wireless communication, which was initially only radio, provided point-to-point communication where telegraph lines were impractical or unreliable.”

Multimedia is the older form of entertainment, produced by movie productions, writers limiting the involvement from nonprofessionals. An example of a product would be the Twilight or the Harry Potter novel series that were then made into films after being inspired from the novels. By turning these novels a movie, it allows the product to become visual for the audience but not allowing the audience to participate, which makes it a form of multimedia.

Multimedia limits interactions and communication. However, transmedia allows the audience to indulge in this participatory culture of media and goes way beyond the limits of just visual capabilities. That being said, communicating with others is a key trait to transmedia.

An example of a product of transmedia would be any of the super hero film such as Superman, essentially because it allows the audience to consume the material through various different ways. The audience can interact with the content in various different ways, including video games and comics. There are even portable games, like apps that have been created for smart phones. Blogs and webpages are also other examples of transmedia considering the worldwide audience which can discuss, agree, disagree with said content. Social networks engage in transmedia as users on Youtube create their own videos of critical reviews of multimedia productions, like a movie or even a new popular song.

The key variable in transmedia is storytelling. It offers the audience to product their own stories on a single story, which certainly resulted from one general idea. One general idea is then portrayed through various different platforms like television, video games, cell phone, film, computers etc. Furthermore, the consumption of money is more then relevant because it allows more companies, businesses and organization to make and retain monetary value, making it easier for the audience, i.e.: businesses and consumers, to enter the market, which is engaging in more participation.

Multimedia, along the years, is becoming more and more outdated due to the fact of the creation of new technology like video game systems, social websites and the Internet. With all of the advances, multimedia has, over time, evolved more into transmedia, the interactive social communications from a common interest of a multimedia product.