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1 Introduction

Media convergence and transmedia are closely related by theory, methods and application. Media convergence (1979) was introduced by Nicholas Negroponte during a presentation to raise funds for the MIT Media Research Laboratory.Footnote 1 Negroponte predicted that the digitalisation of content would lead to major industrial changes, forcing broadcasting and motion picture, computer and print or publishing industries to move closer towards one common content distribution model. He further outlined this theory in his book ‘Being Digital’ in 1990. Roger Fidler (1997) also researched the issue of digitalization in his book Mediamorphosis, where he anticipated how the digitalization of content could influence value chains and how convergence may impact upon more traditional media producers and service providers.

The concept ‘transmedia’, as coined by Marsha Kinder in 1993, describes a reproduction process of TV or movie characters in video games and how this reproduction might intensify and accelerate in commercial ‘transmedia supersystems’. In 2004, Henry Jenkins further defined ‘transmedia storytelling’ as “the consumption of different content that is part of the same storyworld on several devices” (Jenkins, 2006). He conversely discussed how consumer behaviour might cause a less predictable user dynamic by highlighting that convergence occurs via the social interaction amongst the users. Jenkins further defined convergence as “…the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behaviour of media audiences who will go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of entertainment experiences they want. … enables the same content to flow through many different channels and assume many different forms at the point of reception.” (Jenkins, 2006).

However, almost a decade after Henry Jenkins introduced his vision, storytellers and producers working with transmedia storytelling still struggle to live up to its full potential. Meanwhile, other interpretations of the term transmedia add confusion to this already complex emerging subject. Henry Jenkins himself has recently distinguished his vision from current transmedia branding ‘buzz’ by reminding us that transmedia content always expands rather than merely adopts existing stories (Jenkins, 2011).

While we have seen a number of independent transmedia storytelling productions and grassroot projects over the years we still have not seen a commercial transmedia storytelling project that is as successful as blockbuster movies. One possible reason might be that a commercial project that adheres strictly to Jenkins’ vision would require very large corporate resources. The challenges within logistics, planning, scripting, marketing or distribution describes complex interdisciplinary issues.

In addition to the challenge of pinning down a new production model as it evolves comes the challenge of bringing together domains that have been firmly established as being separate but which now have to work together. Enabling processes, personnel and language to match up between game producers, film producers and book publishers involves having to change mind-sets, organizational structures as well as building new infrastructure for long established multimillion-dollar industries.

Transmedia content production requires scriptwriters, interaction designers and content producers to collaborate in order to come up with a complex storyworld that allows for interactive and non-interactive entertainment. This necessitates A-Shape skills (Leonard & Sensiper, 1998). The concept of A-shaped skills is a metaphor used in job recruitment to describe the abilities of a person. A-shaped individuals embody technological fusion; within the context of transmedia storytelling it describes individuals that merge creative writing and interaction design skills. The vision of ‘growing up digital’ (Tapscott, 2008) suggests that such talents might emerge over time. However, such talents or multi-talented teams do not fit within current production models. Current content financing and production models are limited to pre-produced content creation that might be distributed using cross-media channels but would not allow for emerging storyworlds. Consequently, transmedia storytellers struggle to find funding—and those few that do, struggle with the challenge of combining traditional and new media production methods which in turn requires addressing a complex issue forcing major changes to long established multimillion dollar industries. Bearing in mind that transmedia storytelling describes only one possible entertainment format it would be unrealistic to claim that those industries would have to change in order to cater for transmedia only. What necessitate a change are user behaviours such as for example, video on demand (Cheng, Stein, Jin, & Zhang, 2008) trends that have a major impact on broadcasting value chains similar to the changes that the digitalization of music brought to that industry.

For the purpose of designing a conceptual transmedia methodology we conducted 20 international interviews including early adopters, scientific researchers, broadcasters, production experts as well as traditional storytellers. Each interview lasted 2 h and was focused on terminology in use, personal experiences as well as tools and techniques applied. During an international interdisciplinary 1-day workshop we consolidated the findings from these interviews and discussed perspectives of transmedia storytelling. We found that the wide array and differing perspectives that transmedia can entail often causes confusion from scientific, investigative and economic perspectives.

In this chapter we introduce several perspectives of transmedia content consumption, discuss its challenges, influences, current trends and illustrate an early version of our conceptual transmedia methodology.

1.1 The Problem of Complexity

Transmedia storytelling does not only require interdisciplinary creative teams to collaborate closely and form collective intelligence; it is also based on complex cross-domain know-how that forms complicated and diverse frame-works that require a multitude of tools and techniques.

One example of such complexity can be found in the area of cognition (Sternberg & Sternberg, 2011). Cognitive mental processes might include, attention, memory, producing and understanding language, learning, reasoning, problem solving and/or decision making, to name a few. A central problem that needs to be addressed is that multitalented teams, including scriptwriters, game designer, graphic designers, or user experience designers, use different mental models. Their understanding of cognition is related to their genre’s perspective of how people perceive their creative work.

In the area of script writing, where story is key, cognition is often referred to as ‘narratology’ (Prince, 1994) utilizing frameworks such as ‘heroes journey’ (Vogler, 1992). The’heroes journey’ claims that most stories can be boiled down to a series of narrative structures and character archetypes, which can be used to construct stories.

From an Interaction Design and User Interface perspective (Bolter & Gromala, 2005), cognition is discussed in terms of how well we understand and are able to manage an interface. Therefore concepts such as, ‘cognitive load’ (Paas, Renkel, & Sweller, 2004), researching the overwhelming overload of multimedia data and ‘cognitive friction’ (Cooper, 2004)—focusing on the resistance encountered by human intellect when it engages with a complex system—are relevant within this field. Graphic designers work with a different perspective of cognition in applying rules of Gestalt psychology (Humphrey, 1924), in order to determine how we perceive visual designs. Experience design, on the other hand focuses on cognition in relation to our emotions and the motivational affordances offered by a system in how well it fulfils our motivational needs (Pritchard & Ashwood, 2008).

1.1.1 Orchestration

Orchestration describes another complexity issue within the production of transmedia storytelling. It describes the issue of arrangement, management and illustration of complex story structures. During a set of international interviews, transmedia storytellers reported difficulties in keeping an overview of their own complex transmedia structures. Transmedia stories feature not only the common linear story-paths but also offer cross-paths to side stories and additional multimedia content that have to be orchestrated into holistic user experiences (Hassenzahl & Tractinsky, 2006). Keeping track of all the story and design elements within production teams is a time consuming and complex task. The main orchestration issues within transmedia storytelling are related to the multitude of media spaces and novel temporal aspects that have to be aligned to form rich transmedia experiences.

1.1.2 Media Disruption as ‘Divergent Convergence’

Media disruption or discontinuity refers to a situation where a person seeking (or consuming) information is forced to change their mode of information processing or searching in order to comply with the media at hand. In divergence projects media disruption may play a major role and in order to deal with media disruption it has often been suggested to create seamless designs. In the context of transmedia this would refer to a situation where a person consuming information is disrupted and therefore no longer feels immersed in the story world. Media disruption should not necessarily be understood as an issue that arises when users switch media types since an interruption of an experience might be intentional within transmedia storytelling and might not necessarily result in breaking the illusion or ‘flow’ (Czikszentmihalyi & Nakamura, 2002). Switching media types is often introduced by designing for motivational affordance. For example, in the pervasive gaming project (Montola, Stenros, & Waern, 2009) ‘Epidemic Menace’ (Lindt, Ohlenburg, Pankoke-Babatz, & Ghellal, 2007) each media type featured a different role as part of a role-playing game. Here the user changed the mode of information processing if and when they felt the need to switch roles. Media disruption in the field of transmedia design could be defined as a phenomenon that needs to be integrated into the design of the storyworld in order to create one fictional world that provides a coherent experience in itself.

1.1.3 Storyworld or Fictional Universe

Fictional universe describes a self-consistent fictional setting that does not contain storylines or plots. Within a fictional universe all elements that form the universe such as theme, conflict, existence or genre are of equal importance (Jones, 2006). A cohesive fictional universe will consider all themes, but the trigger for an idea may of course vary in nature. A fictional universe is typically created prior to story writing and provides the frame for any type of story to occur. What distinguishes a fictional universe from simpler storytelling is the level of detail and internal consistency. Within linear storytelling frameworks, the story follows strictly along a line of engagement. In the case of TV series, such as ‘The Sopranos’,Footnote 2 it may also follow several storylines simultaneously, but each story line in itself is also based on a strict linear form of engagement. A fictional universe, on the other hand, has an established continuity and internal logic that must be adhered to throughout the work and even across separate works. Rather than adding interactive elements as an afterthought at the end of a production cycle, fictional universe based productions would allow considering user engagement from the outset of a production.

1.1.4 Convergence Trends as Opportunities for Transmedia Design

Above we suggested that convergence, divergence and transmedia describe separate intertwined theories. While convergence and divergence are used to describe both, a media distribution model and more general media consumption phenomena, transmedia describes one specific format of content consumption that inherits participatory elements. Television has drastically changed over the past 15 years due to the growth of digital modes of caption and transmission. Television content is no longer only delivered temporarily via networks, standardized broadcasting or cable/satellite solution providers. According to market researchers such as the ‘Nielsen Company’,Footnote 3 a growing number of households consume streamed rather than broadcasted content. It further suggests that many households no longer own TV-sets, but use their computer and high-resolution monitors as their main home entertainment device, consuming content as and when they want it.

Video on demand solutions impact current value chains, by excluding broadcasters and including network based content providers, such as for example, Netflix.Footnote 4 This trend may be relevant for transmedia storytelling by eradicating stipulated broadcasting times and allowing for evolving storyworlds. TV series content providers, such as for example HBO, have already adapted to the changing consumer behaviour. They now offer their content as video on demand solutions as well, and focus on more conceptualised content enabling multi-episode or even multi-season consumption. Here, the temporal aspect of content creation and consumption changes and provide new opportunities for stories to evolve across media types.

1.1.5 Divergence Trends as Opportunities for Transmedia Design

Due to the divergence of content, designers and business decision makers now face the task of figuring out how to deliver novel rich experiences across multiple screen sizes and devices, such as desktops, tablets, and smartphones. Responsive Web Design or RWD (Zhang & Urchurtu, 2011) offers automated device detection and optimized content displays by adopting CSS3 media queries.Footnote 5 Automated device detection in combination with environment and location detection could enable immersive responsive content selection. Responsive transmedia user experience designs could enable users to consume content, when, how and where they want.

2 Literature State of the Art

Various interpretations of transmedia cause confusion and scepticism in the commercial and scientific world. Scepticism is very often related to a misunderstanding of the role of transmedia. In order to explore why and how these interpretations arose we have collected various perspectives aligned them to the understanding of convergence or divergence. Please note that since a list of all current and recent projects, as well as all interpretations of transmedia storytelling would be too extensive to describe here, we focused on the most common interpretations only and grouped them into commercial, current transmedia example and the learning perspectives.

2.1 Commercial Perspectives

Commercial examples of transmedia storytelling differ from grassroot projects or other smaller case studies. Mostly produced for mass consumption commercial transmedia projects face interdisciplinary issues we outlined previously.

2.1.1 Divergence: Alternate Reality Games (ARG) and TV

One of the first transmedia storytelling examples can be found in alternate reality games (Bjork & Holopainen, 2005). The rise of the Internet usage in 1990s enabled new forms of interactive content consumption and storytelling. Early examples of alternate reality games such as ‘Dreadnot’ published by Sfgate.com in 1996,Footnote 6 introduce transmedia experiences that would entail fictional characters that moved in the real, and fictional world, leaving traces on websites, fake phone calls or clues in source code. Today we see a rise of TV series that are linked to alternate reality games. Mostly focused around crime and conspiracy type genres, real time alternate reality game extensions are linked to air times of TV episodes such as e.g. the truth about Marika ‘Sanningen om Marika’.Footnote 7

2.1.2 Pre-Divergence: 360° Pre-Release Marketing Solution

For pre-release marketing solutions, cross-media content is produced and distributed over the course of time involving several media types as part of e.g. a guerrilla advertising campaign. Here the cross-media content is diverted in order to maximise profit. However, even though the movie might not be part of an evolving storyworld the experience prior to the movie might well be perceived as a transmedia experience. For instance, prior to the premiere of ‘The Dark Knight’ EntertainmentFootnote 8 launched an alternate reality game to promote the movie. This pre-release marketing campaign contained all elements of a rich transmedia project: a compelling story, fan participation, games and clues, the use of digital technologies as well as live and digital events.

2.1.3 Post Divergence: Merchandising and Remediation

Cross-media merchandising solutions are also frequently described as ‘transmedia campaigns’. Henry Jenkins referred to this development as ‘the transmedia buzz’ (Jenkins, 2011). Content is reproduced to create additional profit from blockbuster movies or popular TV series. Here, the same storyline is reproduced and additional functional or unseen footage might be added as an extension but seldom actually expands a story. Remediation, on the other hand, describes a process where not only elements of a movie but the entire storyline are repurposed for a game or vice versa. Examples of such an approach include ‘Tomb Raider’ or ‘Star Wars’ where the story and the character are remediated from TV into a game or vice versa as outlined by the theory of transmedia supersystems (Kinder, 1991).

2.1.4 Divergence: Multi-Screeners, Social TV

Other convergence trends are more related to changing consumer behaviour, such as e.g. multi-screeners (IAB AB Europe, 2010). Describing, simultaneous consumption of content on different devices, mostly using one device for broadcasting and the other device for participation, in associated communities. This trend seems to utilize the growing involvement of users in social networks. Often used for Social TV (Abreu & Almeida, 2009), this genre enables multi-screeners to experience live broadcasts as part of a holistic experience across different media types, which by definition could be classified as transmedia experiences. Here the user does not only consume broadcasted data but can actually actively manipulate the broadcasted content via interaction in social networks or Internet based services. However, although Social TV formats highlight the participatory nature of transmedia content consumption, some transmedia evangelists criticize the quality of such experiences.

2.1.5 Convergence: Multipurpose Devices and Transmedia Novels

In 2006 the pervasive gaming (Montola et al., 2009) prototype ‘The Epidemic Menace’(Lindt et al., 2007), part of the EU funded research project IPerG,Footnote 9 combined a mobile, stationary, and augmented reality game into one storyworld that was introduced and interrupted by movie elements. The main purpose of the movie elements was to set the stage of the game world, ensure immersion into a fictional world, and afford switching game modes. At the time six different player devices and a multitude of backend devices were needed in order to enable the pervasive user experience. Soon after, mobile multimedia devices such as the iPhone entered the global market and we could witness a new convergence era. The implications for the game “the epidemic menace” would have been massive since all game elements (including the augmented reality game mode) could have been implemented on one single device.

This example illustrated how multipurpose devices (Murray, 2012) enable transmedia experiences by combining all functionalities associated with network computers; game consoles and conventionally delivered, episodic television, on one single platform. The shift from single purpose hardware to multipurpose hardware could not only enable immersive storyworlds on one single device but also allow the broadcasting, computing-, and publications industry to move even closer towards one common service platform.

One currently example that illustrates this perspective is the digitalization of books. The introduction of ‘ePub’ (Castro, 2010) technology enables transmedia experiences on eBooks by allowing for audio-visual experiences intertwined with more traditional reading experiences. Resent examples include ‘Operation Ajax’Footnote 10 and ‘Mirror World’Footnote 11 by Cornelia Funke. Both interactive books enable rich transmedia experiences on one single device.

2.2 Transmedia Cases

In addition to the highly commercial presentation of transmedia storytelling perspectives we outlined above, there are an increasing number of smaller more grassroot oriented transmedia productions. In order to portray their perspective of transmedia storytelling we asked two transmedia producers to provide us with a sneak preview of their latest projects. First, Christy Dena, a transmedia producer and expert, outlines her latest work ‘AUTHENTIC IN ALL CAPS’.Footnote 12 Then the transmedia storyteller and producer Christian Fonnesbech, who has already launched several transmedia projects, such as ‘TDC’, ‘The Galatheo Mystery’ or ‘The Climate Mystery’, describes his latest work ‘Cloud Chamber’.Footnote 13

2.2.1 AUTHENTIC IN ALL CAPS

‘“AUTHENTIC IN ALL CAPS” is a web audio adventure created independently. Independent in this context means it is not funded by a client (brand, publisher, broadcaster, or agency). The ideas are not constrained by the needs of an external client. The project is created in iOS and will be distributed through iTunes. The design of the project form, the web audio adventure, is influenced by my work on large-scale global transmedia projects and my PhD research. The fragmented nature of transmedia projects is an obstacle to many players/audience members. While on the one hand there is an undeniable tendency of humans to engage in multiple “media” or “modes” or “touch-points”, engagement with the same storyworld (especially in the same session) is not as common. So what we see a lot of creators do is take away the fragmentation, the divergence, and “converge” all the elements. If they’re all available in the same time and place, then it is more approachable. But this takes away the divergent side of transmedia. I wanted to figure out a way you could have both convergence and divergence operating at the same time. One thing I had discovered from my PhD research was that convergence happens at the intangible level. Divergence at the tangible. Usually transmedia projects are joined conceptually, with a continuing storyworld that the player/audience member takes with them/imagines. The combining force is the storyworld abstracted in the mind as triggered by the “text”. What I realised is that there is a “media” equivalent of the intangible. Audio. Audio can be the glue that combines fragmented elements in a manner that their distinctness is maintained. And so I created the idea of the web audio adventure. I draw on the design principles of audio tours of museums and apply them to the web. AUTHENTIC IN ALL CAPS is a playful story delivered through a whole lot of fictional websites that I create (divergence), navigated by the guided audio, a radio drama layer (convergence)’.

2.2.2 Cloud Chamber

‘Cloud Chamber is an online mystery inspired by space and electronic music. Players collaborate on a single website to uncover the story of a young scientist who has risked her sanity and betrayed her father in order to save humanity from itself. In Cloud Chamber, electronic music is the key to opening the secrets of the universe. Cloud Chamber orchestrates ‘found footage’ across a variety of media. Players navigate and collaborate and interact in order to access media (film, video, text, diagrams, photographs etc.)—they are detectives discovering what actually happened. The experience can be described as ‘a single site Altered Reality Game.’ We think of it as fiction for the Facebook generation—part social network, part filmed mystery and part game. The tone mixes psychological thriller elements with supernatural horror and real space science to draw players into a dark mystery. As they explore the story, the mysteries of the human psyche and the heartless voids and immensities of outer space become one.’ (Fig. 1)

Fig. 1
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Cloud chamber Investigate North (2012)

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2.2.3 The Learning Perspective

When technological affordances change, it also changes how we interact with the world around us, as well as the way we learn and acquire knowledge. According to this theory, learning stems from the relation between the collective and the individual (Säljö & Linderoth, 2002), similarly to the notion of collective intelligence.

There is no doubt that transmedia solutions will allow for new ways of acting and interacting. Therefore, we find it of interest to further elaborate on a perspective of transmedia learning, as we see that transmedia storytelling can add to our understanding of the learning process in the context of educational technology and how it is affected by media convergence and divergence. Jenkins states in his definition of transmedia that “each franchise entry needs to be self-contained enough to enable autonomous consumption”. This echoes the notion of learning objects, which is often described as the smallest unit, which in itself can be seen as an entity, representing building blocks of content.

We argue that humans are by default transmedia storybuilders based on our multichannel sensory system and multimodal brain. Our perceptual and sensory systems are the source of our conscious experience (Fauconnier & Turner, 2002). Sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste can metaphorically be seen as the tools of our bodies, which aid us in experiencing various perceptions from a variety of perspectives. Our cognitive and emotional brain translates these perceptions into experiences and learning is the process where knowledge is created through the transformation of experience (Kolb, 1984). Media tools function as extensions of our bodies and, hence, transmedia affordances can be described as extensions of our bodies and senses to assist this transformation of experiences into knowledge through learning.

In educational technology contexts, multimodal media platforms are often used for delivering information, as well as allowing for networking, collaboration, participation, and performance (Luckin et al., 2012). Multimodal stimulations allow for different perspectives and consequently optimize opportunities for learning (Sankey, Birch, & Gardiner, 2010), and thus, allow for ‘additive comprehension’ of a subject (Jenkins, 2006). Transmedia learning involves utilizing a variety of media tools that complement each other as a blended and dynamic content method to facilitate learning (Jenkins, 2006; Teske & Horstman, 2012). The intention is to put the learner through a constructive act, not merely transmit content.

The transmedia storyworld allows us to learn about the content through various transmedia affordances, i.e. options of interconnected content and possibilities to engage and interact with the content. One such example of a transmedia learning experience is provided by ‘Inanimate Alice’,Footnote 14 originally created for entertainment, but later adopted in education for teaching both global citizenship and digital literacy skills. However, in this transmedia storytelling, the storyworld is predetermined. Another angle is when the story in itself is a creation of the learner, enabled by powerful multipurpose devices. An example of this is ‘Talking Tools’ (Johansson & Porko-Hudd, 2013), a smartphone application, supporting multimodal transmedia storybuilding through documentation and communication. The aim is to make the learning process in itself transparent and taking the form of a learning story flowing between converging media options.

From a participator perspective, transmedia seams determine how you are able to make choices of actions, which path you can take, which bricks of content you can build your own story with. Ultimately, how you can add your own voice of co-creation in the transmedia conversation. From the participator’s view this becomes a transmedia storybuilding process, as you as a participator may create your own version of how to experience the story depending on choices of content and choices of interaction. In these ways, you become a co-producer of your own experience.

3 Methodology and Approach

The goal of our conceptual transmedia storytelling methodology is first of all to enable storytellers to create better transmedia storyworlds—no matter which domain they draw upon, and no matter where they are in the complicated process of fusing media channels and/or media types. Secondly, our aim is to provide a visual tool to handle the involved complexity and to make narrative choices by displaying the storyworld and trajectories (Benford, Giannachi, Koleva, & Rodden, 2009) using infographics that are easy to read and manipulate. Thirdly, we want to help establishing a common language, as well as a structural understanding of the complexity of transmedia designs.

Figure 2 illustrates a possible conceptual transmedia methodology, and displays how more traditional storytelling frameworks such as the fictional universe could be merged with user experience design aspects of a transmedia experience. Our goal is to combine multi-disciplinary perspectives into one common conceptual framework. By placing storytelling frameworks and user experience design frameworks on opposite sides of a transmedia storyworld, we wish to emphasise that storytellers will have to design for user experience if they wish to produce a transmedia story.

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Conceptual transmedia methodology

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3.1 Storytelling Frameworks

Many transmedia storytellers stress the importance of building a transmedia world that is based on a fictional universe. Fictional universe describe self-consistent fictional settings that are typically created without specific storylines and provide the frame for any type of story to occur. In contrast, more traditional storytelling frameworks such as ‘heroes journey’ (Vogler, 1992), ‘three act paradigm’ (Fields, 1979) or ‘dramatic arc’ (Freytag, 1836), which focus on telling one story that follows strictly along one storyline. Our evolving methodological approach, Fig. 2, readily allows for all storytelling frameworks. However, it stresses the necessity to consider user experience design theories such as cognitive, interactive and sensual involvement during creative writing in order to create a holistic and cohesive experience.

3.2 User Experience Design

For the purpose of drafting a conceptual methodology we started by focusing on the dimensions of a user experience encountered by the consumption of various media content. The goal of the transmedia storyteller could be to target specific user needs (Hassenzahl, 2010) in order to facilitate a great experience and user satisfaction. Experience can be regarded as ‘meaning-making’ (Dourish, 2004). According to Vyas and van der Veer (2006) there are at least four important areas to consider in the design of technology and digital content, in order to facilitate a positive user experience: the experience in interaction as a dynamic process, experience as interpretation of how we actively construct meaning, the experience as what the designers offer and what the users bring to it, and finally, the four inseparable dimensions of experience, which are practical involvement, cognitive involvement, emotional involvement, and sensual involvement. We use these four dimensions of experiences as headlines and overarching structure for the HCI aspects of transmedia storytelling and assigned below more tangible design patterns or frameworks such as ‘game design patterns’ (Bjork & Holopainen, 2005) or ‘interactional trajectories’ (Benford et al., 2009). Please note that this evolving methodology only illustrates a high-level approach as this point in time. Applying game design pattern or interactional trajectories will require a more abstract form of storyworld building. In order to apply game design patterns or interactional trajectories it will be necessary to translate those into the various contexts of a specific fictional universe.

3.3 Interactional Trajectories

Benford et al. introduced the concept of ‘interactional trajectories’ (Benford et al., 2009). It describes a trajectory as a journey through a user experience that passes through the following hybrid structures as outlined below (Benford et al., 2009, p. 71):

“Multiple physical and virtual spaces may be adjacent, connected and overlaid to create a hybrid space that provides the stage for the experience.

Hybrid time combines story time; plot time, schedule time, interaction time and perceived time to shape the overall timing of events.

Hybrid roles define how different individuals engage, including the public roles of participant and spectator (audience and bystander) and the professional roles of actor, operator and orchestrator.

Hybrid ecologies assemble different interfaces in an environment to enable interaction and collaboration”

While the theory of ‘meaning-making’ (Dourish, 2004) describes an overall approach of creating a user experience, the interactional trajectories framework could help creating transmedia user experiences on a more tangible level, such as defining orchestration tools that could enable transmedia storytellers to explore the overlaps of temporal and special aspects. In turn, this would enable transmedia teams to work collaboratively and assist in understanding both the interdisciplinary challenges and the consequences. Tools such as user journey simulations, an information visualization interface displaying narrative choices and media intersections based on user journeys, could enable designers to target user experience attributes pragmatically, by focusing on ‘do-goals’ and hedonistically by focusing on ‘be-goals’ (Hassenzahl, 2010). Do-goals describe utility-based functions such as casting a vote or searching for content while ‘be-goals’ focus on individual experience such as the subjective feeling of identification, being immersed, or feeling a sense of urgency.

4 Conclusion

In this chapter, we propose several transmedia perspectives, including commercial, non-commercial and learning perspectives, to expand and clarify the current terminology in use in the transmedia field and introduce a high-level conceptual transmedia storytelling methodology.

With regards to terminology, we argue that the term transmedia may provide a limiting view of future convergence centered content consumption. On the other hand, transmedia merely defines one specific entertainment format. In this case, the term was never intended to, and should not be used to define a whole new era of convergence content consumption. We therefore propose that convergence, divergence and transmedia be understood and used as separate albeit intertwined situations.

From a transmedia storytelling perspective, we identify convergence as a part of the textual level, in line with Jenkins (2006) notion of “flow of content”. Divergence, on the other hand, can be referred to as a fragmentation on the contextual level. Or as Christy Dena outlines in her case description for ‘AUTHENTIC IN ALL CAPS’, convergence has to do with the intangible and divergence the tangible part of a transmedia solution. In the area of transmedia, we define media disruption and discontinuities as a phenomenon that needs to be integrated into the design of the storyworld in order to create one fictional universe that provides a coherent experience. This could be framed as designing for ‘divergent convergence’ in the field of transmedia storytelling. Convergence thus allows for transmediation (Siegel, 1995) of the meaning making as well as motivation. The aim is, in other words, to design content that acknowledges, enables and addresses a diverging context. The objective of our transmedia storytelling methodology is to establish a framework for the dynamics of the contextual and content-based elements presented. As we are still establishing the ground work and are subject to an ongoing paradigm change, our proposed methodology readily allows for expansion.

From a psychological perspective, we conclude that we are all innate ‘learning beings’. For transmedia designs this comes down to our ‘additive comprehension’ in relation to content despite diverging context. In a keynote at the AERO 2012 conference, Sir Ken Robinson stated there are two important factors that are characteristic of learners: diversity and creativity. These two characteristics are perhaps the major reason for the evolution of media convergence and divergence. We find this to be particularly relevant for transmedia storytelling, which discards linearity, provides several perspectives to a story, promotes a participatory culture, and often harnesses the added value of collective intelligence.

Janet Murray (2013) argues in a recent publication, ‘Transcending Transmedia’ that most users no longer separate the TV and web entertainment and she is therefore less convinced of the idea of transmedia productions. She foresees a new form of entertainment or genre that will arise based on an act of imagination rather than a business model that ensures a 360° exploitation of a storyworld. In this chapter, we propose a conceptual transmedia methodology that embraces the paradoxes and complexities of this particular field. We contribute this conceptual methodology to provide foundational work to assist understanding of this emerging participatory genre whatever its label may be.