Spreadability

To start off, this reading reiterates the notion that spreadability is determined by the processes of social appraisal. People that have had success in transmedia, will understand what they need to master in regards to the technical aspects and content, which will most likely spread. This leads into the desire of people wanting to share this information within the social groups and communities. Within the era of digital editing, there are technical aspects of content that is shared, those being: Available when and where audiences want it – Suggesting that producers need to send material to where the audience most wants it; portable – The audience wants their content to be on the go, so that it can be moved; easily reusable in a variety of ways – When creating content that needs to spread, you need to be able to open to a variety of audiences; relevant to multiple audiences – the producer needs to create content that will be relevant to various target audiences; part of a steady stream of material – Having your content across multiple platforms that are expected to generate “exponential” hits.

Going into a more personal level, the content viewed by individuals and they might not want to spread this throughout their community, however some content may become more spreadable, because they it is interesting when perceived by social value. When members then choose to pass along the content, it demonstrates that they belong to a community, which can share the common interest.

“Without the means to reach wide audiences through broadcast channels and often working with very limited resources, many of these groups hope their calls for action communicated through online media can motivate supporters to help spread the word”. 

Signs, Systems and Complexity of Transmedia Storytelling

This reading was quite difficult to understand, with concepts that sounded like a science experiment, and I guess this is a bit of an experiment, the way transmedia storytelling works, and how it then becomes successful. “A transmedia story unfolds across multiple media platforms with each new text making a distinctive and valuable contribution to the whole”. This reading does however talk about a transmedia story, where it depicts it as a narrative that tells multiple stories over multiple platforms. It suggests that it is not about offering the exact same content in different media platforms, it is about creating and building upon a world experience where the content evolves with new content.

The types of systems:

TS (super-system): The story, experience, platform, audience – community of people who share common thoughts of the story world.

Story (System): The plot, characters, world, genre and settings

Character (Sub-system): The demographics, location, connection, role and journey.

An open system allows for ultimate viewing for the user. We have grown up with multiple platforms – we are producers of the next generation, looking for a way to model and shape and plan these types of stories.