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Transmedia storytelling (also known as transmedia narrative or multiplatform storytelling) is the technique of adapting a single story or story experience across multiple platforms and formats using current digital technologies.
From a production standpoint, transmedia storytelling involves creating unique content that engages an audience through various platforms and techniques--such as social media, film and television, educational tools, merchandising, and more--in ways that permeate their daily lives.[1] In order to achieve this engagement, a transmedia production will develop and adapt stories across multiple forms of media so as to deliver unique pieces of content in each channel. Importantly, these pieces of content are not only linked together (overtly or subtly), but are in narrative synchronization with each other, creating "shared narratives that extend beyond any single site of consumption or type of engagement," per scholar Lissette Lopez Szwydky.[2][1]
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"However, transmedia storytelling isn't used much at lower education levels. Children would thrive using transmedia storytelling worlds in their learning, but many of these worlds have copyrights linked to them. Transmedia storytelling has yet to tackle learning and educating children, but there have been a few transmedia worlds that have begun to show up with education, mostly by Disney."
This section of the article incorporates personal beliefs rather than facts and comes from a source that does not seem credible--it looks to be a personal blog and not a peer-reviewed article from a credible academic journal.
I may try to find a better source to back up the claims stated in this section, but for now, my edit would be to cut this section entirely since the source does not pass Wikipedia's verifiability policies.
Major edit:
Everything written below is my article draft. This would be an entirely new subsection of the article:
Transmedia storytelling as a form of adaptation
[edit]There have been debates over whether works of transmedia storytelling and adaptive works should be considered part of the same field of study. Transmedia works often extend a narrative across various platforms while adaptive works retell or reshape a narrative.[2] Scholar Erin Sullivan argues that the crux of this debate lies in the ambiguous terminology surrounding both transmedia and adaptation studies.[3] Influential ideas associated with these fields have been introduced by scholars like Henry Jenkins, yet ongoing debates about the definitions of adaptation and transmedia storytelling continue to complicate their respective studies.[2] Other scholars have found overlap between these fields in how they rely on fan engagement and are often the subjects of cultification.[4][5]
According to author Lissette Lopez Szwydky, there is an assumed hierarchy between transmedia storytelling and adaptations. Transmedia storytelling often takes the form of less respected media forms--such as theme park attractions and fan fiction--while adaptive works typically manifest in more respected mediums such as television shows and films.[1][6] In the case of certain franchises, like Star Wars, Dan Hassler-Forest argues that, in terms of this assumed hierarchy, "Film comes first. Current television and video productions are admitted into the 'premier league' of transmedia storytelling, but seemingly only somewhat begrudgingly....Comics, books, and other transmedia expansions are relegated to secondary or tertiary status—these are very much made to feel as if they are not the main event and are there for subgroups and niches of attendees who may be interested."[6] With the emergence of new medias forms and the increasing use of hybridity in recent decades, the perceived hierarchy between adaptations and transmedia storytelling has become less pronounced; it is no longer rare for adaptations to take on the same forms traditionally associated with transmedia narratives.[4]
Other scholars advocate for a more integrated approach to these two fields, arguing that adaptations and transmedia storytelling can be complementary processes.[4] Transmedia storytelling has the ability to build upon adaptive works while also existing as its own entity. As with traditional adaptations, audiences do not necessarily need prior knowledge of the original source material to engage with a work of transmedia storytelling.[4] This ability to retell or expand a story across various platforms positions transmedia storytelling as a mode of adaptation. In both practices, contextual and interpretive choices are shaped by the specific medium in which the story is told.[1]
Transmedia narratives are also an intriguing form of adaptation because of their potential commerciality.[4] Marie-Laure Ryan argues that transmedia storytelling is less about its narrative depth and more about its ability to function as "a marketing strategy that force-feeds storyworlds to the public through as many media platforms as available, in order to reach the widest possible audience."[7] This commercial strategy mirrors long-standing trends in adaptation practices, where adaptations have often been driven by marketability.[8]
Dedicated fans of franchises may be willing to follow a story from one media branch to another, no matter the cost.[5] New consumers can also be introduced to a franchise exclusively through transmedia storytelling, much like how audiences can be introduced to stories via adaptations.[5] In both cases, audiences engage with narratives that "resurface and recirculate, sometimes because they are being retold and sometimes because they are being extended in new directions" via new mediums, contexts, genres, expectations, and more.[2]
![]() | This user is a student editor in Georgia_Southern_University/Adapting_Stories_in_Film_and_Media_(Spring_2025). |
- ^ a b c d Szwydky, Lissette Lopez (2020). Transmedia Adaptation in the Nineteenth Century. The Ohio State University Press. pp. 1–25. ISBN 978-0-8142-1423-7.
- ^ a b c d Jenkins, Henry (2017-03-01). "Adaptation, Extension, Transmedia". Literature/Film Quarterly. 45 (2).
- ^ Sullivan, Erin (2023-08-26). "Introduction: Remixing the Classics". Adaptation. 16 (2): 105–115. doi:10.1093/adaptation/apad020. ISSN 1755-0645.
- ^ a b c d e Enășoiu, Andra Tatiana (2021). "Transmedia Storytelling, Adaptation and the Cult Culture". Concept. 23 (2): 102–115 – via EBSCOhost.
- ^ a b c Schiller, Melanie (2018), Christie, Ian; van den Oever, Annie (eds.), "Transmedia Storytelling: New Practices and Audiences", Stories, Amsterdam University Press, pp. 97–108, doi:10.2307/j.ctv5rf6vf.10, ISBN 978-94-6298-584-1, retrieved 2025-04-06
- ^ a b Hassler-Forest, Dan; Guynes, Sean, eds. (2018). Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling. Transmedia: Participatory Culture and Media Convergence. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. ISBN 978-90-485-3743-3.
- ^ Ryan, Marie-Laure (2015). "Transmedia Storytelling: Industry Buzzword or New Narrative Experience?". Storyworlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies. 7 (2): 1–19. doi:10.5250/storyworlds.7.2.0001. ISSN 2156-7204.
- ^ Hutcheon, Linda (2013). A Theory of Adaptation (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. pp. 1–32. ISBN 978-0415539388.