Participation and Transmediality: Audience Influence on Web Series

Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 2019

Introduction. The changes in the television landscape have given rise to new forms of production and consumption which present challenges to the monitoring of the audience. This article delves into the transformations regarding how to measure the audience through the case study of the series produced by RTVE, Si fueras tú, the first native, interactive and transmedia fiction series. Methodology. An analysis of the official media and platforms which make up the transmedia universe of the fiction series is carried out. Subsequently, the possibilities of interaction and the activities of the audience in each of them are studied. Results. The data show that Facebook and Instagram comprise the greater part of the activity in the transmedia universe. Moreover, the weekly routine in the combination of platforms and the integration of the active audience is identified. Discussion and conclusions. The impossibility of measuring in a standardized way the transmedia audience is proven while further challenges are mentioned.

Second screen strategies are quite common in today’s television industry. Television viewers are used to hashtag suggestions appearing on their screens while watching their shows; networks commonly use second screen options and apps to enhance the audience’s engagement with programming. NBC’s Heroes (2006–2010) was »arguably, the largest and most complex transmedia network […] conceived« (RUPPEL 2012: 224) at the time; the series tested many strategies of media convergence in distributing elements of its fictional world through multiple media platforms. This article focuses on the show’s strategies enticing viewers to engage with its websites, print media extensions, accompanying games, and tie-over webisodes. There have been studies focusing on the series’ branding (cf. GIANNINI 2014) or on the links connecting Heroes’ different elements (cf. RUPPEL 2012: 61), yet there is a tangible lack of attention to what Jason Mittell has termed »forensic fandom« (MITTELL 2015: n.pag.). This article examines the narrative gaps and story arc stops created by the fantasy series. The following discusses how these gaps allowed some viewers to evolve from their assumed passiveness in the general audience to instead become part of the fast growing fan base. Depending on varying levels of involvement, this fandom generated a number of Heroes ›experts‹, creating a tiered hierarchy. Those experts sought to answer questions about mystified symbols, underdeveloped characters, open-ended storylines and potential references provided by the series. This article argues that the NBC strategy ensured the growth of a willing fandom and growing expert base without relying on overt prompts.

Drawing from a research done within OBITEL project - The Ibero-American Observatory on Television Fiction - this article focuses on convergence as a multiple model for storytelling unpredictable interaction of audiences, media and culture. Brazilian and Mexican cases will be highlighted among other Latin American countries in order to raise issues about market and media industry mediations on the emerging citizens’ participatory culture around screens. Questions about audiences’ creative interactions and meaning production will be discussed.

Observatory of culture, 2015

The article analyzes modern media communications and practice of user interaction, where the «participatory discourse» appears. Viewers can influence on the films, series and network projects production. Users appropriate and transform different elements of media content and participate in the «participatory discourse» creation as a form of social-productive relations, which formed the special culture. This type of culture bases on the concepts of «participatory culture» and «collective intelligence».

This thesis analyses the transmedia storytelling strategy applied to promote the TV series Lost. As transmedia storytelling one may understand it as a story told throughout different media, with exclusive content pointing back to the main narrative, working as a potential new audience entry-point. “Which transmedia elements of the Lost formula could be transferable to other cases?” is the research question proposed and in order to answer it, all Lost transmedia events and other marketing elements are discussed and analysed. Alternate Reality Games (ARG) were the main part of this transmedia strategy, counting five in total. Added to ARG, there were mobisodes/websodes and a pseudodocumentary. Beside the transmedia, the following marketing elements are also analysed: a video game, a web game-style narrative, official podcasts, and DVDs/Blu-rays. Fandom is also discussed, as it is inevitable to talk about a TV show success without touching the subject. Transmedia elements are analysed based on the very transmedia storytelling concept, (a) the medium utilised; (b) strategy applied/objective(s); (c) how much it affected the viewser’s knowledge compared to the main narrative; (d) where did the transmedia event led the viewser; and finally, (e) if this transmedia event could actually work as an inviting entry-point to new audience. Based on the mentioned characteristics, it is possible to see that Lost transmedia elements were indeed successful and it could be applied, with appropriated changes, to other cases taking in consideration their particular features.

‘Transmedia’ refers to a storyworld that occurs on multiple platforms where each component text makes a “distinct and valuable contribution to the whole”. In much of the practitioner discussion about transmedia storytelling, the attraction to audiences of transmedia products is taken for granted. In the present paper I ask: what is the respective value of a transmedia offering to the audience and to the originator? A review of diverse literatures shows that while transmedia audience engagement strategies largely seek to elicit fanlike behaviors entailing psychological investment and social involvement in 'spreading', distributing, commenting on, and creating media content, this is also true of less complex media products. It is a challenge to design transmedia products that appeal to audiences with very different propensities to engage, and although transmedia-enabled scope economies are attractive, they seem to be more accessible to larger than smaller firms.

This master thesis research project is focused on analyzing the text created by users that are members of specifics Brazilian telenovela online communities. Its is also focused on recognizing the motivations of these members and identifying the strategies used in the process in which these members create and interpret what is behind of these texts.

Northern Lights, 2016

In the past three decades television has undergone a unique transformation. Digitalization and the integration of traditional media and telecommunication have also allowed films and television programmes to be marketed and used on other technical platforms besides conventional cinema and television. Individual films and television programmes must therefore both be considered in the context of multimedia offerings. Associated social media activities and websites (including webisodes or games) are more and more important for the production and distribution of television drama series. In an era of media convergence single media outlets like television converge with online media. Transmedia storytelling where a story is told on as many platforms as possible to attract audiences is mainly related to television drama series. Based on the analysis of several transmedia outlets of television drama series the article will show how production companies, networks and other TV channels attempt to involve viewers via transmedia storytelling in a fragmented media market with a fragmented audience in creating a 360-degree experience.

2018

Resumen The growing multiscreen consumption of fiction content is key in the transformation of audiovisual media. The search for non-linear communication strategies to capture the audience through multiple platforms promotes the transmedia message. Transmediality is not limited to the way of narrating, but also to the way of producing and disseminating a story. The Laboratory of Radio Televisión Española, Lab RTVE, stands out in Spain for its innovative impulse in the production of audiovisual content, experimenting and developing new narratives and formats, as well as detecting trends. Examples of this are series such as El Caso, Águila Roja or El Ministerio del Tiempo. This text assesses the use of the transmedia storytelling of fiction contents of Lab RTVE in 2015 and 2016. A rubric is elaborated with elements that make a product narratively transmedia. In addition, each item is analyzed qualitatively establishing the degree of transmediality of the product. It emphasizes the tra...

Journal of Asia-Pacific Pop Culture, 2022

To date, the scholarship on transmedia storytelling has focused on analyzing existing properties or on establishing holistic approaches to the craft itself. Missing from the scholarship are deep considerations of the individual mechanics at work during the telling of a story across multiple media platforms. We examine state-of-the-art transmedia properties to identify how audience motivations are engineered to ensure that the audience transitions from one media platform to another. Complicated story transitions, or "bridges," are an effect of the increased complexity of transmedia franchises, challenging the traditional monocentric "tentpole approach" with a broader polycentric approach. With a polycentric model, the complexity is managed not through tie-ins to one tentpole but as a mix of what are labeled here as storylines, storyworlds, and character bridges with varying levels of complexities in their relation to the traditional tentpole medium.