New media: storytelling & reality (Working title)
Bibliography: (in progress)
Ryan, M 2011, ‘The Interactive Onion’ in New narratives: stories and storytelling in the digital age, R. Page & B. Thomas ed., University of Nebraska Press, U.S., pp.35-62.
In this text, Marie-Laure Ryan outline varying definitions and opinions from theorists and authors of interactivity in new media. She then argues that, like the layers in an onion, there are different levels of user participation and interactivity in digital texts:
- Peripheral Interactivity
- Interactivity affecting narrative
- Interactivity creating
- Real-time story generation
- Meta-Interactivity
From predefined stories with several outcomes to games which allow users to create their own modules or levels, Ryan analyses and dissects a wide range of examples of digital texts to demonstrate the various degrees of interactivity involved.
The article addresses different foundational theories previously applied to new media interactivity, and objectively reviews the different narrative structures and levels of participation in the demonstrated examples. This text can be useful as a guideline to interpret the levels of interactivity in current and future new media works. However, this article was published in 2011 (five years ago). Given the fast-shifting landscape of new media, there may have since been more recent experimental new media works which have challenged or transcended the defined levels of interactivity listed above.
Pavlik, J.V. & Bridges F 2013, ‘The Emergence of Augmented Reality (AR) as a Storytelling Medium in Journalism’ in Journalism & Communication Monographs, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 4-59.
This monograph is a study of augmented reality and its transformation of storytelling in journalism and the uses of it in journalism storytelling in the past, present, and future. The article begins b providing a detailed background to: the transforming of journalism content, the infrastructure for wireless AR, and the diffusion model established by Everett M. Rogers. The article is broken down into a case study of the situated documentary, extensive interviews on mainstream AR applications, followed by a round table discussion with media experts, and future projections for the implementation of AR storytelling in journalism.
Using a multi-method research approach, this article provides a detailed report into the current industry speculations for augmented reality storytelling in journalism and media. Published in 2013, this study remains relatively up to date but as mentioned in previous annotation, the new media landscape is rapidly transforming.
Alexander, B 2011, ‘Chaotic Fictions; or, Alternate Reality Games’ in The new digital storytelling: creating narratives with new media, ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, pp. 151-161.
In this chapter of Bryan Alexander’s book, he explains the history of the alternate reality game (ARG) in literature and its rise in the digital realm. Alexander explore examples of ARG storytelling used as promotion for films and other transmedia brands. The author also refers to an analytical approach proposed by Sean Stacey, founder of the website Unfiction, to analyse ARG projects:
- Authorship: how much of the content is created by ‘puppet masters’ or players
- Coherence: how clear are the boundaries of the narrative
- Rule-set: How much of the content is predetermined
Alexander is a researcher, educator, consultant and futurist. His book, in which this chapter belongs to, attempts to contextualise the recent and future trends in new media technologies and their influences on the innovation of storytelling. There are many examples in this chapter which demonstrates the elusive nature of ARGs and its various experimentation to blur the lines between fiction and reality. However, the analyses of these examples are brief and there are yet to be enough theoretical discourse on ARGs to draw upon. This source can be used as an overview to the topic of alternate reality games or narratives.
Alexander, B 2011, ‘Augmented Reality: Telling Stories on the Worldboard’ in The new digital storytelling: creating narratives with new media, ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, pp. 163-173.
In this chapter, Bryan Alexander looks at examples of augmented reality (AR) content. Whilst the chapter mainly outlines the technologies and applications of AR, the author addresses some interesting challenges the AR landscape will face in the near future towards the end of the article: technical demands such as processing power; usability, adoption and resistance; and legal ramifications regarding copyrights or intellectual property.
Alexander is a researcher, educator, consultant and futurist. His book, in which this chapter belongs to, attempts to contextualise the recent and future trends in new media technologies and their influences on the innovation of storytelling. The chapter offers only a brief analysis of the implications of AR on storytelling and instead leans toward a general outline of the technology. This source can be a well-structured breakdown of the key aspects of this topic; particularly the practical applications of AR.
Pangburn, D.J. 2016, ‘Sci-Fi Vlog Tells an Anatomically Strange Story of Body Parts’, The Creators Project, blog post, 15 April, viewed 1 August 2016, <http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/sci-fi-vlog-tells-the-anatomically-strange-story-of-the-modular-body>
Kondoz, A & Dagiuklas, T 2014, “Introduction” in 3D future internet media, Springer, New York, pp.1-5.
Kondoz A & Dagiuklas T 2015, “Introduction” in Novel 3D media technologies, Springer, New York, pp.1-7.