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.

Mass Amateurization

Mass Amateurization, as described by Shirkey, has become prominent, seen as an advent of journalists (and photographers) who have been producing work on the internet.  The question of who is a journalist has been up for debate in the digital era and Shirkey gives examples of the confusion in trying to define who fits the description.  He uses the word scarcity on a number of occasions to illustrate the need for a professional (in any profession) where the need of excelled education is needed as a qualifier. The lines become blurred because as Shirkey illustrated with Judith Miller of the New York Times going to jail for protecting her confidential sources, the topic of journalistic protection has different legal ramifications on state levels than on federal levels.  And although journalists have a legal layer of protection of their sources on a state level, should a blogger be afforded the same protection?

There are traditional journalists who now blog and there are bloggers who are non traditional journalists who have gone on to get "real" journalism jobs based on high quality writing and journalism skill set based on their blogs. Clay Shirkey believes that because many people are publishing and writing, the profession of journalism is not unique, and therefore not as valuable. 

The example that Sharkey uses of the French cleaning women being sued by a transportation service for not using their service is almost comically sad, but illustrates the need for professions to  change with the times. "Mass Amateurization" according to Shirkey is the the death in some senses of traditional journalism, but also a birth of a new profession and genre of journalism (including photographers and producers).

Jenkins sums up her view point by stating; "contradictions, confusion, and multiple perspectives should be anticipated at a moment of transition when one media paradigm is dying and another is being born". The Harry Potter Wars are surely a sign of the question "who is a journalist?" e becoming ever more blurred.  The concept of child authors is new and fascinating, and probably one of the positive aspects of "Mass Amateurization". To the great dismay of many traditional journalists,  Mass Amateurization is on the leading a breakthrough to a new professional format that will change the profession of journalism as we once knew it.

FINAL PROJECT

http://prezi.com/fdnhwsnaprus/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Mass Amateurization

Mass Amateurization
Contributor: Christopher Cuenca

Clay Shirky’s "Everyone is a Media Outlet" describes mass amateurization as the process by which a lot of ordinary people (the masses) obtain the tools and become fluent in using technologies that were once commonplace only to the professionals (the minority group) that utilized them. Ordinary people are learning how to use once-exclusive tools and cranking out products/creations that were once impossible to create. Some professions are seeing their ends due to this mass amateurization, laws are being created in response to it, and we are again entering that period of chaos (Weaver, 2010).

Much like the Society of the Spectacle, Mass Amateurization also creates a society this time with the help of new technologies. I remember when Myspace first came out and it was being used by my classmates. I became involved in it and soon began learning how to edit my profile page add cool backgrounds, add all my friends, add friends on my top list, etc... Myspace was the place where one could share what they were doing at that moment with all their friends. It was a social world in which many were consumed by how cool you could make your profile page look. Usually your top friend would be the person you were dating, and of course we all had one friend in common, if we wanted to; Tom. Now that I think of it Myspace was sort of a blog, where one could vent and share their thoughts on the page and well see how many responded. Not with likes, like Facebook has us used to but with messages, gifts and so on... Eventually Myspace would die out (not literally) but socially as Facebook would come in and take its place. 

At first Facebook was just another social tool to help friends talk with friends, this time however your status wasn't a short quote like "eating Chinese food" but paragraphs of your life story. Perhaps what completes mass amateurization for Facebook is the fact that Facebook was not created for social networking in a way we now see today. Facebook's initial attempt was much like LinkedIn's, starting with only Harvard and Ivy League students having access to the page. Facebook was all about finding people like you, education background, city, age; it was almost like Wikipedia but with normal everyday people. When membership was extended to those 13 years and older, well a revolution would soon begin. How did it begin or who was the first person to make Facebook a trend I am not sure. I wish it would have been me, maybe Mark Zuckerburg would have given me a nice commission. Anyways back to the topic. Yes, Facebook became a trend and soon people, mainly the younger generation were on this social platform. Millennials were one of the first people in the masses to adapt to this platform because their knowledge of the internet was far more than that of their parents and the rest of the older crowd.  Now Facebook has become a platform for people of all ages with all types of content being shared across.

What is the outcome according to Shirky?

We have seen examples of how ordinary people have become fluent or are becoming fluent in using technologies completely new to them. Now we are going to see how tools like Facebook are helping ordinary people create this mass amateurization. Ray William Johnson founder of Equals 3, a you tube channel in which he posts videos of hilarious viral videos and comments on them making them even more hilarious. If we look back then, he probably wasn't as popular as he is now. Thanks to constantly posting videos on you tube, he has been able to make a name for himself. He started his own production company called Runaway Planet and like the name indicates, amateurization, he went on to make amateur films that he has been able to capitalizes from sponsors on YouTube. It all started with a simple podcast in his room which eventually he would turn into a studio. This is an example of how ordinary people like Ray turned the media in their favor. Ray is not the only who started his own You-tube Channel and has favored greatly from, College Humor, Smoosh among other channels have gone from being videos on YouTube to actual media companies. 

The Future of Media Professionals

Like Ray, ordinary people are learning how to use technology to start YouTube channels and amazing small media companies perhaps not to compete with the big ones but to contribute and assist, lowering the costs for the big companies by taking in parts of their project. Media has helped many like myself to produce content like this blog in order to explain further the fundamentals of topics that arise such as mass amateurization. Many could argue that unless you have talent like Eminem or Beyonce you will need help of the internet to make it big just like Ray William Johnson did. Artists like Tyler the Creator, Justin Bieber, and more are making names of themselves due to the amount of views, shares and likes their videos get across the web. Traditionally, journalists made a name for themselves by doing extensive research and then publishing their work via books, videos, articles etc... Now thanks to mass amateurization and according to The Monkey Trust, artists are adopting the term publish first and filter later. Like Equals 3, content is shared across the web some not being the best and others being really great but either way people are getting their seconds of fame on social media. We now have the tools to make a name for ourselves even if it only lasts a few seconds by creating content that is good or bad but still makes its ways around the web thanks to those that share it or find it interesting. Interesting? Right.

Works Cited

TheMonkeyTrust. "Mass Amateurization: We Need a Filter." YouTube. YouTube, 04 Dec. 2013. Web. 19 Dec. 2016.

Society of the Spectacle

Spectacle of the Society or Society of the Spectacle?
Contributor: Christopher Cuenca

The Society of the Spectacle is a work published by Guy-Ernest Debord in which he presents the concept of the Spectacle which was a central notion of in the Situationist theory. In Debord's words "The commodity can only be understood in its undistorted essence when it becomes the universal category of society as a whole. Only in this context does the reification produced by commodity relations assume decisive importance both for the objective evolution of society and for the stance adopted by men towards it. Only then does the commodity become crucial for the subjugation of men's consciousness to the forms in which this reification finds expression.... As labor is progressively rationalized and mechanized man's lack of will is reinforced by the way in which his activity becomes less and less active and more and more contemplative." Those are strong words from a guy who existed in 1967 but nevertheless this was a time period of change across the world and one could understand why his ideas were put into such a mentality as the Situationist theory. 

Debord discusses commodity in the following nature "In the essential movement of the spectacle, which consists of taking up all that existed in human activity in a fluid state so as to possess it in a congealed state as things which have become the exclusive value by their formulation in negative of lived value, we recognize our old enemy, the commodity, who knows so well how to seem at first glance something trivial and obvious, while on the contrary it is so complex and so full of metaphysical subtleties. This is the principle of commodity fetishism, the domination of society by "intangible as well as tangible things," which reaches its absolute fulfillment in the spectacle, where the tangible world is replaced by a selection of images which exist above it, and which simultaneously impose themselves as the tangible par excellence." He basically is describing that the world is being taken over by materialistic things and materialistic thoughts. 

Let's take the example of this famous actress, she goes by the name of Marilyn Monroe and is still very popular in today's pop-culture as she was back in the 1950s. If we take Guy's words word by word "where the tangible world is replaced by a selection of images which exist above it, and which simultaneously impose themselves as the tangible par excellence", Marilyn Monroe fits those words perfectly. In a society filled with images of a woman as beautiful as she was, women themselves want to be her, envy her and buy what is of her. This imposes the idea where the commodity becomes something of need rather than want. "I need to buy the same lipstick she use" or "I need to have a figure like hers" are thoughts that surrounded many women during Monroe's time period because Monroe was considered perfection! 

"Consumer Society" as explained by Durham and Kellner translated from Debord is the consumption of not only images but commodities also. Let's look at an example through Marvel's films Captain America and Iron Man. These two films share a character in common and I am not referring to neither superhero. Howard Stark, the rich entrepreneur and founder of Stark Industries, which would later be passed on to Tony. In Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), Howard Stark introduces us to high tech technology during a time period of war (WWII). To no surprise, Marvel was not that far off as cars started to be manufactured during that time. While not as cool and impressive as the ones Stark introduced they sure share the idea that would become the future of this country. Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man follows in his father's playboy lifestyle enjoying a lavish lifestyle full of high tech in home flat screen tvs, furniture and top class vehicles. This has become a trend in which vehicles have now become part of our everyday lifestyle. Most people can't imagine a world without a car, what would they do? where would they go? Cars also have gone from being a want (use public transportation as an alternative or walk) to a need (I am going to the grocery store 2 blocks away). I do not criticize the society of the spectable but rather agree that in turn the effects of images and commodities has changed society drastically. 

Spectacle continually intensifies, producing ever more attenuated and atomised

social relations. Modern consumer culture becomes less and less able to offer its subjects

ways to live in the present, to accept the flow of time or push aside instant gratification. The

compulsion to document one’s life in images through the habitual use of phone- and videocameras

is hollow at its core, the effect of profound alienation. The only reality that spectacle

can offer, write Retort, is that of Reality TV (Stallabras, 2006). This author explains what I will try to end my blog with in the sense that the society of the spectacle has gone far beyond images and commodities. I am sure we are familiar with the term "selfie" right? First adopted from what I recall through a social media platform called Instagram to then being passed on to Snapchat. Well that is what our world today is becoming. A social media crazed society where our lives depend and are spent on these social media platforms that help us interact with one another. We want to go ahead and share the best moments of our lives with friends and loved ones whom we don't get the opportunity to see everyday. A simple snap shared in minutes has helped us come a long way from old ways of communication such as the telephone, telegraph, postal mail, email, and even text messaging. Unbelievable! Stallabras makes a good point relevant in 2006 but now I am going to add my own twist to his theory. Reality TV was once popular in pop culture where we would watch a TV series of famous or non famous individuals and their lifestyles and well in some way try to copy and imitate those lifestyles for our own. Well now Reality TV is not as popular as a snap-chat story or at least that's what I feel. Reality TV has gone to be part of the history book to allow snap-chat and other social media technologies to allow participants to also become part of the world of the society of spectacle. 

Works Cited

1. Durham, Meenakshi Gigi., and Douglas Kellner. Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006. Print.
2. Stallabras, Julian. Spectacle and Terror. London: New Left Review, 2006. Print.

Extra Credit

Selfie: Us and Them

Perhaps one of the most interesting exhibitions I have visited in a while, "Selfie: Us and Them" captured my attention. While I will not talk about all of the pieces in the exhibition I will be very bias here and discuss the one that I felt was the strongest of them all. I leave here a note to self --------->><<<<<---- to attempt to find out the name of the artist and the name of the work. For those who attend it will not be difficult to spot as it is one of the first pieces you will see as soon as you walk into the exhibition. It is a wall full of memes of pictures or selfies or self portraits of the artist herself, well let me demonstrate to you an example of what I mean:

The image above is an exact example of the nature of this artist's work. While not exactly the same, the content of the meme is as strong as the one above. From what I understood the artist based her work off comments she asked friends and family to describe her, and then I guess the artist went and twisted some of the comments to make memes similar to the one above to express what I believe the nature of a meme. From what I remember some of the memes were about her being a single mom or her being pregnant and then something about being a whore. The case is that her work truly connected with the message she was trying to send out about memes and the cruel reality they can be. While we accept memes about Kanye, Donald Trump, and other people; reality is we don't know how much is enough and how the content can get out of hand. At least that is my interpretation of the work.

I found most of her works interesting while some of them were difficult to understand. I understand that in some cultures and I will assume based on her memes that in hers, she is treated like daddy's little girls, innocent, with the goal of making mom and dad proud. However, when she fails she becomes the black sheep of the family. The great thing about her work is that it can also be seen from an outsider perspective. For example, her being daddy's little girl does not necessarily have to be that of her family's. It could also be seen from an outsider, let's use myself as an example who has different views in cultures (not necessarily) but does not understand anything beyond. A white girl like her can easily be seen as "daddy's little girl", why? Well her race and skin color, what if the girl was Hispanic or African American, the term "daddy's little girl" would not be taken in the same approach as the white girl's. In a way it becomes a term of envy that this girl is financially well off with all the support from dad and that she can get whatever she wants by simply asking daddy.

Amazon: The Prime Example

Multimedia refers to the different forms of media used to communicate a message, idea, etc. For example, photos, videos, audio, and various forms of artwork like animation, illustrations, infographics, drawings, paintings, are forms of multimedia. These are the different ways in which we can create interactive/ communicative content. Transmedia, on the other hand, uses these forms of multimedia and transports them across different digital technologies/platforms like web blogs, video games, social media networks, and apps (mobile and other forms), to name a few.

 

We cannot talk about multimedia and transmedia without discussing the success of one company that has seriously taken over most of our lives, and may actually take over the world one day (Am I being dramatic? Maybe, but if this comes true… You're welcome for the heads up). Amazon is everywhere, reaching audiences all around the world through transmedia, and keeping their attention through exceptional use of multimedia.

When I was first introduced to Amazon, I thought it was another book-selling website. If I wanted to buy “anything else,” I would go to eBay… however, that changed once I subscribed to Amazon Prime. I did so because Amazon did, in fact, sell “everything else” too, and the difference between Amazon and eBay is that with this Prime subscription (and honestly, even without it), shipping was faster than eBay and I was always guaranteed that my items would ultimately arrive.

Amazon, to me, was only an online retail store. Then I came across Amazon Video/movie/show rental… It’s not as strong as Netflix or Hulu, but I don’t expect it to be since streaming is not their specialty, but maybe I have spoken too soon. It still, however, is giving Netflix a run for its money.

Amazon uses every media platform it can to reach a new audience. It recently released a an ad about an Imam and a Priest bonding once over tea and again via amazon prime. The commercial was brilliant, and can be found on almost every social media platform (since it went viral), including YouTube. Click on the link below. Amazon is not only looking to enter our pockets, but are trying their best to win over our hearts, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ouu6LGGIWsc

I can think of three ways Amazon has created (or in the midst of creating) its own form trans“media.”

1. Amazon Prime Air

Amazon wants to deliver your things via drones… Goodbye fantasy, hello reality.

Their delivery service is quick, but their prime delivery game just got seriously stronger, along with their advertising game. The visual they provide are clear and fun to watch, and they have a great multimedia/marketing teams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNySOrI2Ny8

2. Amazon Echo

If we were impressed by iPhone’s Siri, wait until you meet Amazon’s Alexa. She gives you news updates, makes song and grocery lists, answer any factual questions you have. Although this is great, it has another competitor, “Google Home.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkOCeAtKHIc

3. Amazon Go “world’s most advanced shopping technology”

This is the last of rant about Amazon. I am baffled. Amazon has opened a smart shopping market. Scan your phone into the store when you walk in, grab anything you want, scan again when you leave and everything that you put into your “virtual” cart is now paid for. This is great if you hate standing in line to check out of any supermarket.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrmMk1Myrxc

I could have chosen Facebook, Disney, Marvel Studios, or some famous video game that shook 2016 (like Pokemon) as my example, but we need to pay attention to Amazon, the effect it’s already having on us and where it will take us 5-10 years from today. Amazon will soon make itself a necessity because it’s catering to our on-the-go lifestyles. It is using transmedia storytelling to get to us, and it keeps getting stronger and better at its game. I may be putting too much faith into Amazon’s future success, but it is only inevitable. They're online, on our phones, on apple TV, on every billboard. on social media.... It's Amazon's world, and we're just living in it.

P.S. I won't get into how Amazon can ship groceries to your doors, too. (I believe it is called Amazon Pantry, and it's not as impressive as the listed items, but it definitely adds to the reasons why amazon is hitting every market.)

*Drops mic*