Running Head: TRANSMEDIA STORYTELLING

Transmedia Storytelling: Design Principals for Professional Communicators

Madeleine Burlin
Royal Roads University
February 29, 2016
COMM365 Media and Cultural Studies

Introduction

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Running Head: TRANSMEDIA STORYTELLING
Before we get in to how to use narrative and transmedia to effectively communicate
messages, it is important to understand why narrative is relevant to communication. As
Rosemary Huisman emphasizes in Narrative and Media, narrative is historically and culturally
positioned to turn information and events into structures that are already meaningful to their
audiences (p. 2). Think about your professional life: perhaps you work in journalism, or in
advertising. Your job requires you to take information and transform it to not only suit the
medium you are using, but to do so in a way that it is contextual and meaningful to the audience.
The very fact that we have journalists in our society speaks to how we relate to events in the
world. Advertisers have jobs because their ability to create meaning, through the use of stories,
sells products. Organizations hire professional communicators to craft messages for their brand,
to tell their story, and to reach their audience.
As Rosemary Huisman argues, our sense of reality is increasingly structured by
narrative. Feature films and documentaries tell us stories about ourselves and the world we live
in. Television speaks back to us and offers us reality in the form of hyperbole and parody. Print
journalism turns daily life into a story. Advertisements narrativise our fantasies and desires
(Huisman, 2). Stories are powerful because they validate our experiences: they turn what we
cannot express into something coherent that connects and relates to our experiences. Even if a
story we hear, see, or experience seems untrue, the fact that it is a story and that story is how we
understand reality, makes it inherently powerful. As Andrea Phillips argues in her Ted
presentation at Tedx Transmedia in 2013, it behooves us as storytellers to actually shape a
world we want to be living in because at the end of the day, every story we are telling is true
(Phillips).
Transmedia Narrative

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Now that the concept of narrative is clear, it is easier to understand the concept of
transmedia narrative. As Jenkins (2011) asserts in Transmedia 202: Further Reflections,
transmedia simply means across media. Therefore, transmedia narrative refers to the telling of
a story across different media. As Jenkins notes, Transmedia storytelling is the process of linking
together narrative threads across a variety of platforms. What is important is not the number of
media platforms or outlets that a story is represented on or through. Instead, the idea of
continuity and interrelatedness is paramount. It is not simply adaption, like turning the Harry
Potter series into a sequence of films. Instead, it is a relationship of intertextuality combined
with multimodality.
As Henry Jenkins (2011) reminds us, the options available to a transmedia producer
today are different from those available some decades ago, but we can still point to historical
antecedents which were experimenting with notions of world building and mythology-modeled
story structures. In other words, transmedia storytelling is not just related to technology, it is
grounded in the principles of oral cultures or Greek mythology. It is core to human nature in that
it reflects the intertextuality and multimodality of our everyday lives.
Based on this knowledge that transmedia storytelling is an effective tool for
communication, I have developed five key design principles for professional communicators
engaging with transmedia storytelling. This is applicable to professionals in the tech industry,
public relations, marketing, advertising, journalism, and other communications-based industries.
Self-aware Authority and authorial intent
It is crucial to understand the power of your position as a storyteller, and to proceed with
caution given that understanding. Stories are fundamentally related to human identity. It is
through the construction and absorption of stories that we exist and interact in the world. From

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Running Head: TRANSMEDIA STORYTELLING
this perspective, proceed with caution. If you are designing a fictional world, be conscious of
your own authority, and ensure your design intent is congruent with the outcome. An illustrative
example of this is in Christopher Nolans 2010 film Inception. The extractors, or the people
capable of hijacking peoples dreams and entering into the subconscious, are hired by
organizations to plant seeds in an individuals mind to influence behaviour. Think of yourself
as an extractor you have the ability to plant seeds in the minds of your audience in order to
influence their behaviour. It is important to recognize this power and to reflect on the potential
impact.
Clip from Inception (2010)
The element of the unknown
By creating a world where there are inherent gaps, you as the designer are able to create a
more immersive experience that reflects daily life. As Henry Jenkins points out, transmedia
creates 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 (2007). There is something inherently intriguing about
wanting to know what we cannot know. Transmedia mimics the structure of our everyday lives,
because it operates on the premise of being a fictional world. It is unlike a movie whose story
begins and ends with all of the conflicts resolved, but instead it opens the door to unlimited
conflict, adventure, and possibility.
An example of this would be a story written by Andrea Phillips for Wanderlust Stories, a
locative storytelling app. The story, entitled Ivy, involved a novel-like description specific to each
spot, designed to be unlocked when the user is in that specific location. The story includes
snippets of conversation and interactions taking place in each of the locations. Although

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descriptive, the stories are not explicit. By being in the location when unlocking the story, the
reader is immersed in the physical environment, but becomes immersed by the intrigue of a
mysterious story.
By creating a world or reality where you accept or even create the possibility of the
unknown, you are not only reaffirming the audiences role as an active one, but create more
intrigue by increasing desire and fascination. This leads to the next design principle, which
involves designing for an active audience.
Invite collaboration and creative interaction
Your audience is not blind, nor are they static. It is also ignorant to assume that your
audience is using your message or text for a singular purpose, and in a general context.
Therefore, it is important to reinforce a quality of openness and collaboration in your design. As
Janice Radway (2009) asserts, Commodities, like mass-produced literary texts are selectd,
purchased, constructed, and used by real people with previously exisiting needs, desires,
intentions, and interpretive strategies. By reinstating those active individuals and their creative,
constructive activities at the heart of our interpretive enterprise, we avoid blinding ourselves to
the fact that the essentially human practice of making meaning goes on even in a world
increasingly dominated by things and by consumption (p. 449). In other words, an important
element to reaching your audience is to engage their creative insights. For example, Angel
Between the Lines is a fan audio drama series that covers what happens between the seasons of
the television series Angel, a spin off series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Fan contribution to this
series is based on the creative framework of the show, but includes outside perspectives,
creativity, and audience engagement.
Serial or Episodic Structure

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Running Head: TRANSMEDIA STORYTELLING
Designs for transmedia storytelling should include a narrative that is episodic or serial in
nature. Therefore, it does not follow the traditional linear model of narrative whereby there is a
clear beginning, middle, and end in one text. This creates more intrigue and engagement, and
allows for the unfolding of events in a continuous way. Instead of traditional narrative structure,
you can use serial or episodic structures for the continuation of one or more stories over media.
The distinction between the two is simple: a serial structure involves the telling of a story over
the course of episodes like seasons of a television series; episodic structure is the design of each
episode as a stand-alone, but is connected to other episodes by characters or format. For
example, the Netflix original series House of Cards is designed as with a serial structure,
whereby each season of the series is a collection of episodes that tell a continuous story. David
Crane and Marta Kauffmans sitcom Friends is an episodic series, where the same characters are
involved in each episode, but there is no narrative continuity from one episode to the next. Most
successful television series involve elements of both episodic and serial structures.
Accessibility
Henry Jenkins refers to this design principle as having multiple entry points. In other
words, create more than one doorway into your fictional world, message, or story by appealing to
different demographics. Transmedia storytelling practices may expand the potential market for
a property by creating different points of entry for different audience segments (Jenkins, 2011).
If you are designing a marketing campaign for a comic book series, consider the ways you could
engage a wider audience. Henry Jenkins in his article Transmedia Storytelling 101, gives the
example of how the television series Desperate Housewives game, targeted at an older female
audience and encouraging a new point of entry for an uncommon demographic in the gaming
world.

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Running Head: TRANSMEDIA STORYTELLING
Conclusion
The basic elements of narrative are fundamental to understanding how humans create and
attach meaning. Transmedia narrative or storytelling is an extension of this foundational
understanding, that allows us as professional communicators to tap into the power of narrative in
the process of communication. By implementing design principles such as self-awareness,
including the element of the unknown, inviting collaboration, following continuous narrative
structures, and designing for accessibility, you are able to tap into the influence and potential of
creating meaning in your message.

References

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Running Head: TRANSMEDIA STORYTELLING
Huisman, Rosemary. (2005). Chapter 2: Narrative Concepts. In H. Fulton, R. Huisman, J.
Murphet & A. Dunn (Eds.), Narrative and Media. (pp. 1-27). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. Retrieved from
http://lib.myilibrary.com.ezproxy.royalroads.ca/Open.aspx?id=41498
Jenkins, Henry. (2007, March 22). Transmedia Storytelling 101. Confessions of an Aca-Fan.
[Weblog entry]. Retrieved from
http://henryjenkins.org/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html
Jenkins, Henry. (2011, August 1). Transmedia Storytelling 202: Further Reflections. Confessions
of an Aca-Fan. [Weblog entry]. Retrieved from
http://henryjenkins.org/2011/08/defining_transmedia_further_re.html
Phillips, Andrea. (2013, December 20). The Ethics and Responsibilities of Storytelling [Video
File]. Retrieved from http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/The-Ethics-and-Responsibilities
Radway, Janice. (2009). Chapter 36: Reading the Romance. In S. Thornham, C. Bassett & P.
Marris (Eds.), Media Studies: A Reader (pp. 440-450). New York: New York University
Press.
Thomas, E. (Producer), & Nolan, C. (Director). (2010). Inception [Motion picture]. The United
States: Warner Bros. Pictures