Multimedia. Transmedia. Convergence. Connecting Platforms. Storytelling on Steroids. There are a myriad of ways to analyze and contextualize how communicators work together to bring multiple platforms to their audiences for interaction, growth, and change. Oftentimes, the restraints of defining a project in the simplest terminology can choke the project’s free-form and creativity–rendering it less effective. In the Google discussion “Interacting with Transmedia”, one of the big-picture issues is the concept of straying away from constraints around the terminology of multimedia. Ultimately, no one knows what the final form or multiple forms of the project will be. Journalists, web developers, and filmmakers alike must understand the balance between the idea of ‘reinvented storytelling’ such as interactive web-based information and the fundamentals of storytelling–who is our target audience? Scribe Video’s Precious Places collaboration with the Philadelphia community aims to connect new media platforms with traditional forms of storytelling to raise awareness and, ultimately, social justice and change. The Precious Place series gives community members the opportunity to tell their own stories, be a part of the film curation process, and see their stories grow in strength and force as they promote consciousness. This is where authorship and openness meet. Multimedia, in its most powerful forms, is able to create such a buzz to push people towards a higher consciousness. How powerful does that make us?
Katelyn,
You touched on an issue that is near and dear to own my heart when you mentioned remembering your target audience. It is a fundamental of storytelling. What makes a transmedia approach both fascinating and utilitarian is that now that same target audience is bound to be more diverse. They’ll differ on their preferred media outlet, how the content is structured or worded, and whether or not it requires them to take an active or passive role in its transmission. These differences tend to make each message almost an entity unto itself.
The challenges that last point presents are obvious. A truly integrated message platform should be comprehensive and cohesive, but not monolithic, more an aggregation of thematically similar content than a collection of media clones. Maintaining that message solidarity as we move from platform to platform will be no easy task, especially when you consider that our target audience, along with their needs and expectations, must remain foremost in our mind.
As you keenly observed in your conclusion, this ability to reach out to multiple communities does make journalists/storytellers powerful. I would say that it’s equally proportionate to the obligation owed their audience
Katelyn, I love your message at the end, “Multimedia, in its most powerful forms, is able to create such a buzz to push people towards a higher consciousness.”
I feel like that is what excites me the most about social change and the shifting that we are experiencing. It really is all about elevating consciousness; that is our job as social change communicators. When we don’t see the world as it really is; both the atrocities and injustice as well as the beauty and visions for a better future then we are blind, we are stagnant. This allows for further degradation. What a challenge we have!
Steven-
I agree that the target audience is one of the most fundamental and crucial aspects of storytelling. By applying transmedia to a multifaceted audience, we are absolutely going to yield different results than we would have with a single platform. I think it is a great point that you address– how their preferred media outlet with affect how they will receive their news from here on out.
Lindsey-
I would like to think that (more or less) we have all understood our responsibility at information gatekeepers and how we use that power to drive social change and awareness in our society is the single-most valuable aspect of being multi-media journalists and strategic communicators. I love your point about being stagnant. I hope that we will never have to experience this type of degradation first-hand.
One thing that the Precious Places videos and the reading made me think about was the idea of citizen journalism, which is what we tried to implement with a program at my former job. The idea was that we would create all of these websites that would essentially serve as sort of an online hometown newspaper. We had like 30 websites devoted to neighborhoods in Portland, Vancouver and the surrounding suburbs. We wanted to get people who live in those communities to report on what’s going on in their neighborhoods because, like the Precious Places videos, those neighborhoods are important to the people who live there. Ultimately, our project failed for a whole host of reasons, but you can see that the real community newspapers are still around and trying to serve the community they are in.
Kudos to your keen insights, Katelyn! Your understanding of the transformative potential of multimedia storytelling is commendable. Keep pushing boundaries and exploring the dynamic intersections of storytelling platforms. Your recognition of the power within us to foster higher consciousness through multimedia is a powerful call to action! 🚀🌟