narrative elements across multiple media for the purpose of creating a unified and meaningful story consumption experience. The idea is based upon the notion of “transmedia storytelling” offered by Henry Jenkins (2006, 20), but adapted to the realm of consumer behavior. Transmedia storytelling has revolutionized narrative consumption practices with its layered, non-linear, and complex stories that court consumers across media platforms. It provides alternative and multiple touchpoints for consumer engagement and allows consumers to create niche, customizable, interactive, and possibly richer media experiences. Adapting and extending the idea of transmedia storytelling and grounding it in consumer culture theories, this study explores transmedia experiences by focusing on consumer practices pertaining to transmedia narratives. We explore two related research questions: “What constitutes transmedia consumption experiences (hereafter, TCE)? and How do consumers create unified and meaningful consumption experiences in transmedia franchises?” To understand the lived, complex, and rich phenomena of TCE, we adopt a qualitative research approach. We collected data in three transmedia contexts, Obama For America (OFA), the Coca-Cola Happiness Factory, and ABC’s Lost franchise —all understood as transmedia narratives by experts. We draw upon data collected from depth interviews, netnography, and participant observation in these contexts. Via grounded and hermeneutic theory development procedures, our dataset helps us identify shared and resonant issues and meanings among consumers. Space restrictions preclude discussing all findings of our in-depth study. As such, we will focus on one emergent key practice—patching. This strategy describes a unique and customized consumer practice that entails uniting, joining, affixing producer-defined elements from different media platforms to each other. Patching unveils consumers’ co-creations of their own versions
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