schrockmedia

The Annenberg Program on Online Communities (APOC) was represented at the 2008 Convergence and Society conference at the University of South Carolina (aka, “the other USC”). Conference organizer Augie Grant wisely selected the topic of “The Participatory Web.” Many presentations throughout the conference were peppered with references to online communities. I presented the APOC curriculum, teaching methodologies, and overall perspective. The feedback I received reinforced my perspective that our program uniquely considers online communities as more of an entrepreneurial venture, and our close relationships with industry place us on the leading edge.

For the entire blog story, please see my post on the main Annenberg Online Program site.

Robert Niles posted an interesting story in the Online Journalism Review, talking about the reluctance of journalists, editors, and publishers to incorporate user-generated content in their websites. I called this a "crisis of identity as well as function," which I think appropriately sets the issue in terms that I have heard over the last several years from many older journalists who are more hard-line traditionalists.

Henry Jenkins of the MIT Media Lab visited the Annenberg School for Communication today to discuss his ongoing research in and writing on Transmedia Storytelling. He refers to this as the aesthetic dimension of longitudinal fiction, where plot and narratives are drawn out over multiple media. This “expansion” of the typical narrative offered by a movie dramatically adds to the storytelling experience. Some contemporary examples of Transmedia Storytelling include comic books and manga, as well as movie franchises, such as the Matrix, which transpose a storyline over not only the movie, but related games and websites. They frequently include “encyclopedic” amounts of information (a term credited to Janet Murray). Transmedia Storytelling has been applied to many genres, including science fiction and crime dramas such as The Wire, which features multiple simultaneous and deeply layered narratives.

Even small amounts of information can provide fodder for fans. For instance, the dream of an origami unicorn in the director’s cut of the movie Bladerunner posed the question (more clearly stated in the book, but not in the officially-released movie) that Decker may himself be a replicant. Fans can take this nugget of information and craft new narratives around it. This happened with Boba Fett, a minor character from Star Wars that became a fan favorite. The original character was quite vague in motivation and backstory, yet he spawned his own novels and toys. Jenkins concludes that the more specific the character, the less inviting the world is to our own construction, and it is in the best interest of producers to not limit the areas for this kind of fan activity.

Online communities are particularly important to Transmedia Storytelling, because they are where fans meet, discuss, and share content and new ideas that will be added to the world of choice. J. K. Rowling, Jenkins said, made a critical error when she “closed down opportunities for audience participation” by resolving timelines in the final Harry Potter book instead of leaving them open for future development. While fan/amateur culture and journalism can be seen as conflicting, they may merely require a restructuring of narrative to tell Transmedia stories. Although, “mass media still has more power… than anything that takes place in grassroots communities,” the new forms of participation offered by online communities clearly are important developments for nearly any area of media production or dissemination.

Jenkins also drew connections between his work and the current presidential race. Dean realized that much of fundraising would be done digitally, while Obama fully embraced the possibilities of Transmedia Storytelling by fostering narratives outside the realm of traditional media (such as the YouTube hit “Obama Girl”), to great effect. Clearly the production of amateur media, propagated online through sharing sites such as YouTube are important ways that individuals are participating in the democratic process well outside the sphere of print, radio, and television. Perhaps this will be the year people will finally “vote naked” (to use a term from his book, “Convergence Culture”). In other words, will they gain the kind of enthusiasm for online politics in 2008 that they do for online popular culture?

For more pictures of the event, please see this set on Flickr.