RHYTHMA KAPOOR WEEK 6 TRANSMEDIA ENTERTAINMENT & MARKETING AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT

CONTENT Participatory culture Fan Production Audience Engagement Speed Pitches

THREE LAYERS OF TRANSMEDIA EXPERIENCE  Interactive Narratives (Storytelling, world building, ARG, Interactive progression, audience implication, geocaching, resonant storytelling, …)  Engaging Mechanics: Combination of rules producing an engaging experience & encouraging media exploration (Hypertextality & Hypermedia  Gamification  Game)  Distribution: (Aggregation, distribution, billing, Word-of- mouth, Brand loyalty, recognition

TRANSMEDIA CONTENT PRODUCTION Franchise Productions Short-story Media Constellation Alternated Reality Publishing Personalization Interactive services Community extensions Informative Participative Informative Participative Use daily-used publishing asset to mimic reality Use snacking- media channels Major productions + Legacy of cross-media (including official website) Federate & value the community Tuning medias + individual story paths Call2Act & gain the right to access stories

PARTICIPATORY CULTURE The ways in which new technologies have allowed audiences to “participate” in mainstream media content. ‘Prosumer’- The third tier of creativity halfway between producers and consumers The dichotomy between media “consumers” and media “producers”. It refers to the blurring of the boundaries between consumers and producers. 5

6 A Participatory Culture has Low barriers to expression High civic engagement Support for creating & sharing content Informal mentorship where veterans pass on knowledge & experiences to novices The concept of networked individualism reconfigures users’ access to information, people and other resources allows them to move across, undermine and go beyond the boundaries of existing institutions

FANDOM Refers to specific subcultures that constitute social worlds, communities of practice, interpretive communities, etc. through which cultural products circulate. – Star Trek fandom, the American Idol fandom, Grey’s Anatomy fandom, etc. Early studies of fandom – Fans are slavish adherents to mainstream cultural messages – Similar to “magic bullet” theory of audiences – Comes out of the Frankfurt school, hence the distaste for popular culture – Very similar to early audience studies / media effects paradigm The cultural studies turn – Along with Reading the Romance, fandom scholars writing in the 80’s and early 90’s saw fandom as a resistive practice – Making active meaning of texts, often subverting or rewriting – Slash fiction: queering the text 7

BASIC ELEMENTS OF FANDOMS o Narrative voluntarism o Strict internal rules (narrative ones, but also referring to the imagery of the brand of the group) o Testing (in two ways: anonymously and explicitly); o Opposition to external aggregation (for example, the aggregation that exists among the different groups who favor the same brand) o Fandoms are most often textual fanfictions and audiovisual fanmovies related to internationally- known transmedia brands. Some examples? 8

FAN PRODUCTION Fans not only interpret, they also produce. Fan cultures are communities in which intense cultural production is not only possible, but typical. “Textual productivity” (John Fiske) – What do they produce? Derivative works: borrow characters, settings, situations from cultural products. – X-Files fiction, Star Wars films, Harry Potter newspapers, etc. – Studies of Star Trek fiction, Lara Croft fan art, X-Files web pages, Harry Potter fan fiction Content creators are a subset of fandom, fandom is a sub-set of fans, and fans are a subset of watchers 9

FANDOM & PARTICIPATORY CULTURE Both fandom and participatory culture: – Are generally based around advertising-driven, corporate entertainment products (Star Wars, Harry Potter, LOTR) – Exist in an uneasy relationship to Big Media Copyright / intellectual property Filesharing Examples: shutting down fan sites, suing creators of derivative works, sending cease-and-desist orders But also: sponsoring “official” fan contests, creators of works resisting against Big Media (OK Go, Joss Whedon), hiring of fans, responding positively to fan production 10

11 Commercial Extensions Comic, website, game, mobisode, amusement park attraction, etc.

Fan-Made/Grassroots Extensions: User contributed content –YouTube, Flickr, del.icio.us, etc. User Generated Content- Machinima, mashups, video game mods, fan fiction, fan art, fan films, etc. Hunt for Gollum HP Alliance

TYPES OF ENGAGEMENT Emotional engagement Core story with universal metaphors Opportunities for empathy & narrative transportation Clear protagonist and conflict Defined world values and rules Cognitive engagement Coherent meta-narrative Media pieces additive and consistent to story Designed gaps, mysteries, and narrative spaces Social engagement Design for participation and sharing Enable social validation and identity

AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT The medium is the message (M) means that the medium embeds itself in the message by symbiotic relationship in which the medium influennce how the message is perceived.

WHY AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT? Online articles Video games Fan fiction Action figures Ads Social media learning imagination passive engagement active engagement Provoke thought creates conversation

Engagement Driven Narrative

17 Three stages of audience engagement Audience engagement drives everything. To transmedia activists, the audience is an engaged, participatory, and demanding collaborator. Brands must invite audiences to "co-create," not just as fodder for marketing or promotion.

18 Content by Audience Type

19 Goals for Audience Interest

Audience Engagement

THE HUNGER GAMES TM CAMPAIGN 1.casting revealed on FB 2.24 June reveals #whatsmydistrict, use triggers tweet back 4.29 August 2011, register for your district 5.12 Districts & Capitol PN 6.January 2012, style guides, pics, contests 7.31 January 2012, sign up for tour 8.21 February 2012, fan & official designs for sale 1.FB Active March 2011: 2.FB Fan contest to visit set: 3.Teaser Trailer: August 2011: 4.Thecapitol.pn site: 5.13 pages launched on FB: 6.Capitolcouture.pn tumbler: 7.Capitol.pn tour site: 8.Cafepress merchandizing:

CASE STUDY- HEROES  2008’s Emmy Award winner for Outstanding Interactive Media Programming  Websites, MySpace pages, novels, an elaborate text message- based game, online competitions to create a new hero and an online graphic novel. Heroes 360 Evolution prime time Emmy  Hana Gitelman an exclusive online character - she contacted users via text and daily  Encouraged them to hack into a website Primatech Paper to find clues  Two months from Jan 2007 Heroes 360 experience had more than 48 million page views and 27 million video downloads

Conspiracy for Good Half a million CFG games and apps downloaded from Nokia Collaboration with Nokia, Pearson Education & Room to Read Over 4,000 dedicated players joining the global movement. Real charities woven into the main narrative “Social Benefit Storytelling” Result in 50 scholarships being provided for young women in Africa Five libraries will be stocked with more than 10,000 donated books

SPEED PITCHES