OUAN601 - Considering the Marketing & Distribution of the Transmedia Assets

One of the most important aspects of transmedia storytelling outside of the creation of worlds and the utilisation of media to distribute the stories that take place there, is how the world is given or marketed to an audience. There is a fine line between just creating something to be out there and part of a story world, and something that fits into the rules of the world as it does outside. With my own transmedia project I wanted to have the audio discovered by a character or incorporated into the story some way so that it can be mentioned inside the story but listened to externally in the same format that it is in the graphic novel for example. The problem I encountered is that in the story world I created, electronic devices have been rendered useless by an EMP type effect and so any audio like this would have to be listened to in a different way such as perhaps a radio broadcast. This makes it difficult to move elements from a fictional universe into a real ones because the two can be so vastly different, and as a result, different rules apply.

In terms of the marketing and distribution of the transmedia assets within my own project some are much easier than other. Print based media such as the graphic novel, short stories, and the photographs can be produced relatively cheaply and with relative ease. Of course the audio file can be delivered relatively easily in the form of a USB drive included in some form of 'special edition' release of materials but it doesn't quite coincide with the rules of the story world. So, instead, what I propose is that there is a broadcast sent out either as a one off special occasion or on several occasions where people can tune in (just like the characters from the story do) and listen to the recording. This is quite important because there is somewhat hidden or obscured information in the scripts which help people to build up various ideas about the nature of the world. The fact that this is only broadcast once or several times means that some of the information over the course of the 2 minute duration will be lost, and people will have to collaborate in open discussion about what they heard and what it all means. This is reminiscent of course to alternative reality games, which utilise real world platforms such as radio broadcasts, newspaper advertisements and billboards etc to engage their audience in a fictional game.

'Perhaps one of the first instances that transmedia storytelling was used in order to involve the audience was within alternative reality games. Which have been suggested as matching the criteria for transmedia storytelling due to nature of the medium having ‘the aggregate effect of multiple texts/media artifacts,’ as the defining attribute of ARGs (Watson, 2009).'