Storytelling in the digital age is a bit like storytelling in the Stone Age and a whole lot unlike storytelling in the 1950s. (Or, for that matter, the latter half of the 20th century!) Storytelling today is more sincere, real, and interactive. Less sleazy, ersatz, and manipulative. Storytelling today is for and by the audience, not just for and by the storyteller(s).
Or so I like to believe.
The objective is rapidly shifting away from telling people our stories, to empowering our customers to tell the story for us.
Instead of talking at [emphasis mine] your audience, create experiences worth sharing. Earn the right to… [your audience’s] voice, then curate the story they tell. (Source: Jonny Mole via jeffbullas.com)
Earn your audience, empower your audience to co-create the story, to own the story, and to propagate the story. And then showcase and celebrate the best of the best. Adopt, appreciate, and reward your ambassadors. This is storytelling in the digital age.
What exactly is transmedia storytelling? And how do you develop, produce, share transmedia stories? Well, for starters, you might want to check out Robert Pratten’s Getting Started with Transmedia Storytelling a practical guide for beginners 2nd edition. You can access a full, online version below. Or purchase the print edition (or ebook) now.
[The Internet is] a natural transmedia vector, and we already see stories being told by parallel text, video, audio, fixed image, and other kinds of content, on multiple screens. To get the whole story, you have to engage with all the different media that are used to tell it, and none of them has the complete lowdown. We use very different perceptual equipment to understand each of these media, and they happen simultaneously… The transliteracy skills needed to decode and assimilate a transmedia communication require multi sensory perception, time shifting, and parallel processing. ~ Ray Gallon (Rant of a Humanist Nerd)
Story is trending. Storytelling is trending. Old news, right?
Everyone’s talking about storytelling and storification and story-[add your favorite composite] as a business and marketing tool. Everything’s a story, a narrative, an elevator pitch…
Fair enough. I have no bone to pick with those who aim to storify anything and everything remotely monetizable. It works. It always has. It always will.
But this morning I’d like to remind you about the antithesis of the elevator pitch. It’s called “slow storytelling” and it’s not new or trendy, not even buzzwordy. It’s older than the campfire and probably a defining characteristic of our human DNA.
Slow Storytelling is Real
Slow storytelling is organic and free range. No sophisticated genetic modifications, and no quarterly earnings reports. The hook (or hooks) may be different for each member of the audience. And the narrator may still be trying to sort out the plot, characters, and conclusion in real time with the audience. The emotion is real. The energy is U manufactured. The takeaway is sometimes whimsical, sometimes transformative, sometimes nonexistent. Sometimes laughter is enough. Other times slow storytelling is a lullaby or a lesson. Often it’s just a story, as human and vital as breath and nourishment and love and shelter.
Slow storytelling evolves. Sometimes it loses itself, degenerates. Other times it finds itself, discovers its reason. Blooms. Enchants. Looses its pollen…
Before dipping into the idea of news gamification let’s take a look in news juggernaut’s rearview mirror. Once upon a time, not too terribly long ago, CNN and USA Today catalyzed dramatic change in the news industry. We didn’t all like the transformation, but it was widespread. And enduring.
Today we expect and “need” the 24×7 news cycle. We’ve swapped in-depth investigative journalism for micro-news, thoughtful debates for ping-pong talking points, etc. I generalize, of course, but you get what I’m saying.
Now let’s add mobile to the equation. Laptops, tablets, smartphones, wearable tech,… From glasses to jewelry, the distinction between online and offline is vanishing. Mobile has become ubiquitous. I read a headline somewhere recently along the lines of “End of Online”. The article suggested that there’s no online/offline distinction any more. We’re always online. Hyperbole, but point taken.
Mobile has revolutionized the way people interact with information. It’s like a pacemaker tethered to us even when we sleep. But what does this have to do with the relationship between gamification and news? Everything!
News + Mobile
Feeding the 24×7 news machine requires a 24×7 audience. And that audience has looots of enticing alternatives vying for attention. Mobile is the 24×7 link to all digital content, heck, even to lots of not-so-digital content. Calls from loved ones, for example. Smartphones are
links to our friends and family,
access to our money (online banking, PayPal, etc.),
consumer portals (Amazon, eBay, etc.),
entertainment (ebooks, videos, music, games, etc.),
map/calculator/etc. (21st century Swiss Army knife),
and virtually everything else we use on a day to day basis!
Don’t misunderstand; our mobile devices are not everything, but they’re coming closer and closer. And they tend to be turned on 24×7. Don’t believe me? Just Google it! (Did you Google it on your smartphone?)
News + Mobile + Interactivity = News Gamification
I recommend you listen to Abigail Edge (journalism.co.uk) interview David Ho (Wall Street Journal) on the bridge from mobile news to news gamification. Here’s the lead:
There are already many examples within the news industry where the principles of gaming have been applied to online content, from immersive interactives to quick quizzes… So what lessons can journalists learn from the gaming industry in terms of multi-platform products, engagement and user experience? [Especially] … about interacting with audiences on mobile? (journalism.co.uk)
Ho is the editor for mobile, tablets and emerging technology at the Wall Street Journal, and his perspective is uncluttered and spot on. Here are a couple of highlights:
“Mobile is a battle for time.”
“Mobile doesn’t have to be complicated. It doesn’t have to be fancy… full of bells and whistles.”
News Gamification Tool: Is mobile the 21st century Swiss Army knife? (Credit: Wikipedia)
He goes on to update the conventional wisdom, show don’t tell. In today’s mobile information marketplace, showing is not enough. Engagement is all about physical interaction.
“Feel don’t show… It’s not just looking at a screen. You interact with your device… It’s more than just reading and looking at things.”
Ho describes “dimensional storytelling” or the important of telling stories in more than one or two dimensions. Dimensional storytelling involves creating a physical relationship with your audience, actually including them in the storytelling process.
“The technology that has arrived… allows us to do a lot more with it. There is a depth to it, a third dimension, physical interaction with technology.”
“There is something profound about the physical interaction when you mix it with storytelling… [It] adds more meaning to it and more punch to it.”
He acknowledges that mobile user styles differ and mobile content must adapt to these user differences, but the opportunities for reinvention is endless. News becomes a layer or lens for our experience of the world. And rather than a mind numbing news data stream, mobile devices can liberate stories from the noise and make them relevant. The audience can co-create content on the ground, enriching coverage and amplifying perspective.
But what makes gamification successful? Simply put: motivation. By tracking readers’ success, news organizations provide a sense of progress. This, in turn, motivates readers to continue reading, commenting or performing whatever actions on the site that will contribute to their overall progress. (Mashable)
The future of news gamification is more than quizzes and user submitted footage, more than interactive graphics and geolocated soundbites. The future of news gamification involves rethinking (and quite possibly reinventing) investigative journalism. It will require news media to take risks as they venture out of their tried and true methodologies and experiment with co-creating a collaborative news product with the constituents they serve. Sometimes they will fail. But the good thing about games is that winners are those who try and try again.
Gamification is a convivial technology (Credit: Buster Benson)
Gamification continues to surf the buzzword tidal wave in media and publishing and marketing and virtually anything else that involves audience and narrative and commerce. Not because the idea is new. Because it works. And while gamification is a reference pinched from the video game industry, the underlying concept is far more universal. Basically gamification refers to enhancing and extending user engagement from one-way broadcast to two-way (or multi-way) opt-in co-creation, from one time consumption to an ongoing relationship.
known in the gaming industry parlance as ramification… [it basically] leads to the customer sticking around and engaging with your content much longer. (PRLog)
Heralded as one of the most transformative trends in technology in some of the industries mentioned above, gamification is widely seen as a solution for brand loyalty concerns, content monetization and a growing preference for interactive content.
Gamification is the use of game thinking and game mechanics in non-game contexts to engage users in solving problems. (Wikipedia)
Sounds like a panacea!
Gamification is the use of game elements and game design techniques in non-game contexts (Credit: dullhunk)
But while the concept has staying power, it’s probably not the silver bullet that marketers and content creators hope that it is. The underlying ideas (interactive, engaging, ongoing, user/stakeholder opt-in, etc.) have always been important. Digital just opens up new options. And mobile digital is probably the most exciting and open-ended option of all.
The omnipresent nature of mobile combined with a trend toward platform androgynous digital content renders circumstances ripe for an uptick in gamification. The eery success of Flappy Bird is testament aplenty, but what about when we apply gamification to non-video-game media? I’ll take a look at new gamification next…
The Numinous Place, by
Mark Staufer Mark Staufer (@MarkStaufer) promises a pioneering
transmedia thriller with the launch of ‘The Numinous
Place‘. Blending book, film and web-based narrative
elements, Staufer’s quadrilogy will immerse participants in an
interactive parallel world blurring traditional narrative
entertainment and game play.
‘The Numinous Place’
is the world’s first truly multidimensional work of fiction –
technology and creativity merge harmoniously to create a uniquely
experiential new medium. (The
Numinous Place)
In a recent interview
with Mike Vogel (@MikeVogelCom), the creator of the
transmedia story Phrenic, Stauffer shared some
transmedia (and human nature) observations that I’d like to
highlight.
I believe there’s still a lot of
gimmickry surrounding transmedia, and by that I mean the technology
and the excitement of using multi-platforms oftentimes come at the
expense of the actual story… Tech accentuates the narrative.
Story should always come first. One of the main fears of
traditional publishers is that mixing media—text, audio, video,
etc.—could take the reader out of the story. But that’s an
incredibly old-fashioned view. The fact is, every single one of us
experiences the world in a multi-stream way; our brains multi-task
and filter information and entertainment constantly as an essential
part of our day to day reality. (This is Transmedia)
In short, Spreadable Media argues: If it doesn’t spread, it’s dead… this book challenges some of the prevailing metaphors and frameworks used to describe contemporary media, from biological metaphors like “memes” and “viral” to the concept of “Web 2.0” and the popular notion of “influencers.” Spreadable Media examines the nature of audience engagement, the environment of participation, the way appraisal creates value, and the transnational flows at the heart of these phenomena. It delineates the elements that make content more spreadable and highlights emerging media business models built for a world of participatory circulation… (Spreadable Media)
Spreadable Media Overview
Spreadable Mediaprovides an updated media map for the digital age replacing outdated broadcast age concepts like “stickiness” (roach hotels!), memes and “viral content”. Authors Henry Jenkins, Sam Ford, and Joshua Green define the nature and importance of content “spreadability” in a world of pervasive social media. Spreadable Mediafocuses on the conditions for global participatory circulation, the movement and evolution of co-created content (derived, mashup, remix, etc.) and the augmented relevance/value of audience enhanced content.
In many cases, the greatest marketing successes are not those that spread “virally” among a massive audience but instead those that have content that really resonates with a key audience and acts as cultural material for their own conversations. And, in those cases where a piece of content does become an Internet-wide sensation, it is always driven by allowing people to express themselves through your message rather than having something inherent within the video or story that people are somehow forced to send along. ~ Sam Ford (Fast Company)
Spreadable media is a theory of circulation. Distribution historically refered to a top down, industry controlled system which sought to control the movement of media content across the culture. Independent media makers have often been locked out of the most established systems of distribution by powerful gatekeepers who have worked to protect the interests of mainstream media. Circulation, on the other hand, refers to an emerging hybrid model, where a mix of top-down and bottom-up forces determine how material is shared across and among cultures in far more participatory (and messier) ways. Collective decisions people make about whether to pass along media texts are reshaping the media landscape. A system of circulation offers far more opportunities for independent media makers to enter the consciousness of their desired publics, to court relationships with fans and followers, and to engage with audiences beyond their national borders. ~ Henry Jenkins, Sam Ford, and Joshua Green (TribecaFilm.com)
I included “Everything is a Remix So Steal Like An Artist”, a video featuring Austin Kleon and Kirby Ferguson (writer, filmmaker and creator of Everything is a Remix) in an earlier post — Steal and Remix like an Artist — but the excerpt above bears revisiting. Especially if you missed it the first go-round.
Skip forward to 3:33 in the video to discussion about stepping beyond mere copying. This is a good look at the process of transforming existing ideas, materials, music, stories, etc. into something unique, something original.
“The most dramatic results can happen when ideas are combined. By connecting ideas together creative leaps can be made.” ~ Kirby Ferguson
Highlights:
Basic Elements of Creativity: Copy, Transform & Combine
Transformation and “recontextualizing” are essential!
The current and straightest-forwardest (not a word) definition of transmedia is when you take a single story or storyworld and break it apart like hard toffee so that each of its pieces can live across multiple formats. This definition features little nuance, but hey, fuck it. That’s why this list exists — to gather up the foamy bubbles of nuance and slurp them into our greedy info-hungry mouths.
Still Gotta Give Good Story
Good storytelling is still good storytelling. Doesn’t matter how the story is being told. And this is where transmedia stops being a buzzword, ceases to be a gimmick — no matter what you call it, no matter how many screens you slap it on, no matter how experimental you choose to get, you still have to know the ins and outs of strong storytelling. You cannot and should not lean on the crutch of transmedia.
True Heart, False Face
I find that a lot of what people call “transmedia” fits the technical definition (as noted at the fore of the post) but fails to take into account what for me is more important: the philosophical definition. For me, what makes true transmedia unique and beyond the buzzword, past the gimmick, is when it carries two corollaries to that earlier definition: first, it offers audience investment and lets them act as collaborators; two, the story was intended to be a transmedia experiment from the very beginning.
Let The Audience Drive The Dune Buggy
Here’s why transmedia storytellers need to put their auteur egos off to the side — because the audience needs to control a chunk of the action. This can be overt, where the audience is literally allowed control (or even provenance) over the narrative, and their input changes the entire experience. This can be covert, where audience investment helps to shape the output if not directly change it. But the audience must be part of the feedback loop — and in this increasing age of interactivity, the audience wants their slice.
The Word I Like: “Emergence”
I’m starting to feel that the success of a given transmedia project lives or dies on how much emergence it affords — emergent gameplay being unexpected or unintended game interaction, and emergent narrative being stories growing out of the experience that you did not plan for or anticipate (and note that both are strongly driven by audience). You cannot demand or force emergence, but I think you can cultivate it by leaving room for it, by designing aspects that cede authorial control (or some portion of it) to those who are participating in your story. It also may work if you just hand out buckets of hallucinogens.
Not Every Story Requires It
Transmedia isn’t a big pop culture Snuggie. It is not one size fits all. Some stories just don’t demand that kind of treatment. They’re better off as single-serving entities — book, film, show, comic, deranged hallucination, Scientology pamphlet, whatever. But on the other end of the coin, transmedia isn’t a genre-only thing. I mean, it often is in practice. But it shouldn’t be. And it doesn’t have to be. (25 Things You Should Know About Transmedia Storytelling)
Story is trending. Storytelling is trending. Old news, right?
