Back to some good old fashioned theory this week. We’re looking at a reading by Gambarato – established, she’s a woman – which looks at transmedia stories and the relation to semiotics, semantics, signals, complexity and systems.

For this week’s blog post I want to focus on a vast concept; systems. Gambarato discusses systems theory – systems, subsystems, supersystems, open & closed systems…

According to Gambarato, systems theory refers to the notion that a system is a complex structure which is comprised of many parts, all of which have some interaction among themselves. The assemblage of these parts must form a whole and this whole must be bigger than the individual parts.

Furthermore, within systems theory exists three subcategories – systems, subsystems and supersystems. A suspersystem is comprised of many smaller systems and a subsystem exists within a system. So really, a system is also made up of smaller systems. We’re looking at a system, within a system, within a system here (so are the number of ‘systems within systems’ limitless? Is this Inception for systems academia?)

Regardless, there are limitless examples of systems. Biologically, the human body, as Dan demonstrated in today’s class, is an example of a system – we have bones, blood, blood vessels, etc. But within that system we can recognize subsystems – say, the bacteria that live in our stomachs. However a supersystem also exists – Earth, and the life that exists on it.

So how is this relevant when looking at transmedia storytelling? Stories themselves are systems – the world of storytelling is a supersystem and plot is an example of a subsystem.

And these systems (well, any systems) can be open or closed – an open system has an external structure while a closed system lacks this makeup. The system’s external structure refers to the way the parts of the system interact with the external world. The system’s internal structure refers to the ways in which the parts work together.

So a story that doesn’t allow the audience to affect the narrative is classed as a closed system, as the story system isn’t interacting with the external world – the audience – so much. A story which gives the audience a lot of agency would in turn be recognized as an open system.