September | 2011 | Musings of the Monster Librarian

The Transmedia Trend: Scholastic Jumps on the Bandwagon

The translation of storytelling across multiple media that creates this has a name- transmedia. And publishers are starting to recognize that this is a trend that they need to pay attention to. There have been a fair number of apps that have created interactive versions of books (The Monster at the End of This Book is a huge favorite here) and there are “read to me” ebooks, which my kids also like, but mainstream children’s publisher Scholastic looks to be taking things a step further.

Publishers Weekly reports that Scholastic is partnering with Ruckus Media to create an imprint called Scholastic Ruckus. Not only will this imprint produce interactive storybook apps, but it will provide digital content concurrently with the publication of children’s books (as opposed to having the digital content be “after the fact”), and it will create transmedia properties- a variety of versions of a story told across multiple platforms, which will include not just print copies, but film, gaming, online formats, and other interactive media experiences. I like that Scholastic is embracing this trend and will be interested to see what comes out of the new imprint. But Scholastic is a children’s publisher and so now we will have a generation of kids that expect a lot more from storytelling than what they can see on the printed page. Will it limit their imaginations to have other people’s visions of their reading experience surrounding them , or will it expand them? I don’t know. I can tell you this though: in spite of how exciting I think immersive experiences and transmedia can be, I’ll take the printed page (and the occasional live performance) any day.

Immersive Storytelling: Coming Soon To A Fictional World Near You

I just finished a great book called The Art of Immersion, by Frank Rose, about how storytelling is changing. It’s both exciting and a little discombobulating, at least for a digital immigrant like me. Rose isn’t writing about changing format, exactly, although there is certainly both excitement and discomfort in the world of readers, authors, and publishers about the general shift from paper books to ebooks. What he’s talking about is more like a shift in the way we experience the world. Stories are essential to that.

In today’s world of overwhelming media exposure and social media tools, many people want multiple, connected, participatory approaches to fictional worlds. One of Rose’s examples was the Star Wars universe. Movies, toys, books, comics, games, and much more originate from George Lucas’ empire, but he’s given Star Wars fans license, within limits, to produce their own content as well. There are endless discussions and forums online, websites dedicated to Star Wars, YouTube videos inspired by the movies: there’s even a wiki called Wookiepedia. George Lucas created a world that felt real, in every detail, but the fans have taken it deeper, farther, and wider than he could ever have expected. Using every connection and media tool at their disposal, fans have made Star Wars into far more than a movie (or even six movies). It comes at you from every angle. It’s what Rose calls an “immersive experience”.

An immersive experience doesn’t have to be that large or complex- I was recently pointed towards a review of a theater production inspired by Macbeth called Sleep No More. It takes place on three floors, each with many rooms. The audience members are masked and have the opportunity to wander randomly through the the production, following a character, seeking out hidden places, touching things, almost a participant in the action- immersed in the experience. Macbeth, of course, has been interpreted in many ways, and in other media- maybe a love of the play attracted some audience members, and maybe a show like this one could inspire someone in the audience to check out other interpretations. Or maybe someone who liked the idea of participating in such a creepy experience will try out another live theater performance. It’s all good.

So, immersive experiences don’t HAVE to directly involve digital technologies, advertising, movies, social media, or whatever. But they have to involve people and stories, and when you don’t have the ability to engage people one on one like Sleep No More can, those are ways to reach a lot of people quickly- and even to engage them in the story you’re creating on both an individual level (by empowering them to participate or express themselves in the ways they want to) but also on a collaborative level via technology tools and social media that gives them ownership, too, and it has the opportunity to take storytelling to a completely different place, involving outer experiences as well as (to quote a poem I love) the pictures that storm inside our head.