It’s very useful to deconstruct what story is and to examine its mandatory components; which, like good stories, are open for discussion.

For me, a story conveys a message (or theme); it intends to affect the audience in a deliberate way.  Nowadays, with the explosion of interactive media, the intention of the author might be to engage audience members in crafting the narrative and the meaning they derive from the experience.

I have always preferred traditional narratives, particularly film, rather than transmedia because, to my mind, being immersed in a single medium facilitates the suspension of disbelief (which is something I want when seeking out entertainment).  In comparison, a transmedia project draws more attention to its form by prompting participants to switch between media.

Nevertheless, transmedia works  successfully capture contemporary life in a way that a single medium (such as a film, tv show, or computer game) cannot.  For instance, on any given day most of us switch between several different platforms – smart phone, laptop, tv, tablet, etc.  Transmedia projects thus capture the essence of 21st century life by spreading across these various platforms; they capture the freneticism and fragmentation (and arguably, overstimulation) that have come to define the modern techno era.

I am interested in learning about transmedia firstly for pragmatic reasons, since any media practitioner practicing nowadays must have some degree of cross platform applications to remain viable and competitive.  Secondly, should I want to capture and communicate the aforementioned freneticism of the contemporary era, transmedia seems like the most fitting outlet – echoing the spirit of Marshall McLuhan’s sentiment that the medium (or media) is the message.

I am confident that traditional, single platform narratives can exist harmoniously alongside multi-platform projects, since – in their best forms – films and television offer a carefully structured, ‘uninterrupted’ emotional catharsis that audiences still crave, and which I believe is not offered by transmedia projects.