When a Story Is More Than Paper

Have you read an e-book with enhancements such as animations and sound? Do your teens read apps based on classic tales? Do they visit websites based on popular books or series? If so, you've already engaged with a form of storytelling known as transmedia. What is Transmedia? Henry Jenkins, professor of communication arts at the University of Southern California, defines transmedia as "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. " (1) Confused? To clarify, here are a couple of recent examples of what transmedia is and what it isn't. The movie adaptation of The Hunger Games (or any other book) is not automatically transmedia. However, series like Skeleton Creek, where part of the universe of the story is online and part is within the pages of a book are transmedia. Transmedia is all about mixing different formats to tell pieces of the same story. In recent years, apps, enhanced e-books, and websites have made it possible to tell stories that are truly interactive and told across media types. Using different formats to tell a story is not a new phenomenon. Before printing presses, stories existed in oral tradition, in which storytellers used different voices, gestures, and movements to convey meaning. Stories also existed on stage before they appeared in print. For much of human history, the populace was illiterate. They depended on stained glass, sculpture, oral tradition, and acting out such things like the Stations of the Cross to learn the stories of the Bible. (2) Stories exist in wordless picture books, graphic novels, radio plays, films, video games and anywhere else a narrative is required. The StoryCorps project is currently collecting oral histories that are being archived at the Library of Congress (LC) in audio format. All of these are stories, but not all of them are in print. Movies, albums, and video games have all incorporated aspects of transmedia to engage audiences in a variety of ways on a variety of platforms. One of the earliest and most successful examples of transmedia is The Blair Witch Project. Instead of relying on traditional marketing techniques, such as posters and advertisements to promote the film, the producers created a website containing things like police reports, excerpts from a character's diary, and interviews with the students' (characters in the film) parents. Each week, new elements were added. It is likely that the impact of the transmedia elements on the campaign contributed to the movie's wide success. Ed Sanchez, one of the film's directors, said, "What we learned from The Blair Witch Project is that if you give people enough stuff to explore, they will explore . If people have to work for something they devote more time to it. And they give it more emotional value. " (3) One of the earliest examples of transmedia created specifically for teens is Cathy's Book. Originally published in 2006, the book (a mystery) contains an evidence packet filled with letters, phone numbers, pictures, and birth certificates, as well as doodles and notes written by Cathy in the page margins. Readers could call a phone number printed on the front of the book to hear Cathy's voicemails. This is also one of the first examples of a young adult novel incorporating alternative reality game elements. Over 1,000 readers have discussed their theories about where Cathy ends up, after the story in the book ends, online at www. cathysbook.com. In 2010, Cathy's Book was revamped and released as an app for the iPod Touch and iPhone. Most teen librarians are fairly familiar with Web-based transmedia, thanks to Patrick Carman's many YA series. Prior to the release of his first book in the Skeleton Creek series, a conspiracy website was created with questions that focused on whether the videos and journal entries associated with the book were actual events. …