Session 5: Transmedia Storytelling

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Today’s session let us look back over the past few sessions which spoke about interaction. From the first week we looked into the idea of Web 2.0 and how when it was created people were able to interact and work collaboratively on many platforms. It turned out this played a crucial part in what I learned today. The focus on today’s lesson helped me look into the idea of transmedia and how it helps promote products on many different channels.

According to Henry Jenkins he states “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 it own unique contribution to the unfolding of the story.” (Jenkins and Jenkins, 2007) My further understanding of this is the concept of transmedia is to help tell a story. This was demonstrated effectively for the creation of ‘Cloverfield’. 

 The creators wanted the hype of the film to be big but wanted the actual film to be bigger which led them to creating three separate fake news reports across the world about disasters occurring. People were drawn into this and that’s why the film smashed at the box office as the media portrayed what the film showed. This interested me most out of the examples because, they didn’t give the whole story away but gave hints to what could be expected if you go see it and this is what happened.

I held onto this idea of storytelling through transmedia for our task. We needed to pick a story but create it using a multiple social media platforms. I chose to imagine what Disney’s Tangled would be like if they had social media and how the narrative would be the same or different.

My initial thought was to give Rapunzel a YouTube channel and create vlogs. The thought was this could be her only connection to the outside world instead of just looking out a window. Eugene is a character who can be dumb as well as smart which is why I decided to give him an Instagram account posting about his experiences whether they are good or bad. This then leaves Gothel; I wanted hers to be a little different than the rest because, she’s meant to be the villain so needs to be suspicious. Instead of her actually posting on a social media account she would use her account to keep watch on the activities within the kingdom of Corona which leads her to find out about what Rapunzel has been up to when she leaves the tower.

Rapunzel would share her experiences in the tower ranging from catering, art and her feelings to how she longs to take a step outside.


Eugene uses his Instagram to post anything about himself just so he can be famous just like the name he stole from the book he read as book ‘The Tales of Flynnigan Rider’. 


Gothel uses Facebook to keep tabs on what happens in Corona in the hope of ‘protecting’ Rapunzel and after Varian posts about her and speculates rumours, Gothel takes action to drive the narrative of Tangled.
The main task was fun to take part in but I found using the websites given to complete a little complicated to use especially when creating Rapunzel’s YouTube channel. I wanted to actually show her channel rather than thumbnails for her videos. Visme was the website I used to create the posters/thumbnails but there was no format for an actual channel but I worked my way around this and used the template from my own channel to put the images created in Visme for the banner and ‘Welcome to my Channel’ thumbnail. I felt this represented Rapunzel’s social media better because I took on board the idea from our semiotics session and used the colour which represents the character and some characteristics which represent her as this will tell her story just as much as the narrative of the film.
Next time if I had more time, I would also do the same for Eugene and Gothel by creating their actual profile because this way the audience can learn a lot from them. However, I did learn from this task how to put a few of the skills I learnt from the past sessions especially the visual design and semiotics to bring together a creative design representing a character’s story through colour and text. 

 Other Examples of Transmedia:

  • Star Wars 
  • The Blair Witch Project
  • The Matrix
Angry Birds:

  • Mobile App Game
  • Merchandise
  • Film
  • Facebook 
  • Animation Series
  • T-Mobile Advert
  • Spin Off Game
After participating in this task today, it’s made the decision quite hard on which task I’ve taken part in over the past weeks to proceed with further. I was very interested in the Twine task from last week as this focused on adjusting storylines by bringing in more storylines to follow; whilst this task this week also focused on using transmedia to give away part of a storyline. Out of everything I believe I’m interested in the storyline route and these two activities are the ones that’s pushed my understanding further and caught my attention so I will decide between these ones to study further in assignment 2. I could however, choose one for my extended task and proceed with the other for assignment 2 this way I can explore both further.

Jenkins, H. and Jenkins, H. (2007). Transmedia Storytelling 101. [online] Henry Jenkins. Available at: http://henryjenkins.org/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html [Accessed 27 March 2020].

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