As one of the foremost thinkers on media, entertainment, and culture -- both mainstream and underground -- Henry Jenkins is certainly no stranger to the concept of the geek. Hell, he proudly identifies with these purveyors of objects of underestimated societal worth:
"My name is Henry, and I'm a geek," Jenkins declared as he began his keynote presentation at the iMedia Entertainment Marketing Summit in Santa Monica, Calif. "I'm betting a lot of you in the audience are geeks too. It's an incredible moment to be one of us, as geeks have become the [coveted] early adopters," he said.
Brad Berens, iMedia Summit's chief content officer, explained that it was Jenkins and his fellow trailblazing "geeks" who developed and recognized some of the first transmedia outlets. These included fan fiction, slash fiction, fan forums, and other ways for fans to take entertainment content, add their own voices and ideas, and spread it among their networks. Now matured and accepted as an important cultural and marketing vehicle, transmedia isn't just for geeks anymore. "It is the meeting place between content creators and marketers," Jenkins said.
After my recent interview with Jenkins, I was fortunate enough to catch his Summit presentation, where he expanded on our discussion on transmedia and entertainment.
What's transmedia's story?
Transmedia storytelling occurs when an integral element of a fiction get dispersed across multiple channels -- including comics, videos, websites, and games -- to create a unified and coordinated entertainment experience. Ideally content produced on each medium makes its own unique contribution to the story. So this content not only becomes part of the branding, but also part of the exposition. Think of it as content that transcends the original medium to become richer and more enjoyable through the participation of fans.
It also represents our overall cultural shift from appointment-based to engagement-based entertainment.
Thanks to the transmedia trend, fans can become part of a movie like "Paranormal Activity" before entering the theater. Or bond through their frustration at deciphering a blink-and-you-missed-it map on "Lost." And this examine-and-analyze atmosphere has paid dividends for content creators, like film studios and TV networks. But for marketers, there's a delicate balance between fostering a transmedia environment and micromanaging it to death. "It's not about [putting a logo on] everything in sight. It's about conveying to fans that they won't get the whole story of their favorite show, movie, song, etc., unless they check out the videos on YouTube and the mobile campaign, etc.," Jenkins said.
How viral weakens transmedia's spread
So transmedia entertainment relies on active participation. But it must also have a functioning distribution system in order to become a marketing success. Ironically, Jenkins points out that marketers' reliance on a mechanical misnomer -- the term "viral media" -- could be functioning as a barrier to transmedia's growth potential.
As Henry mentioned in his iMedia interview, viral media inaccurately defines how transmedia entertainment content spreads. Jenkins explains that the term was used as a transitional metaphor -- marketers didn't understand what was happening when consumers started to speak up -- and mash-up -- but they needed a working identifier to gain a foothold of control. In the end, Jenkins contends, marketers' efforts to easily reproduce or discover a template for viral success has largely failed. "Viral media is a smallpox infected blanket theory... I don't think that helps anyone," he said.
Jenkins does admit that we are all susceptible to the allure of spreadable ideas. "No matter how smart we get, there is always this deep, irrational part that makes us potential hosts for self-replicating information," Jenkins said. However, he points out that as culture doesn't self-replicate, marketers that focus on making content spread (rather than focusing on those doing the spreading) are discounting the most vital insight provided by the process. Jenkins refers to a set of common transmedia marketer oversights as his Articles of War, and described them thusly:
1. Viral media mystifies the process of circulation. The broadcast model was distribution based. But circulation is a hybrid process of moving back and forth between commercial and non-commercial layers. Some people work for their own ends, some work for the property. We must figure out the complexities of this process.
2. Viral media dismisses the meaningfulness of your content. To call content viral reduces it to a song that's stuck in your head, not something meaningful to those engaging in it.
In its best sense, transmedia executions are thought of in terms of clues. Jenkins pointed to shows like "Lost" and "24" as examples. He said that figuring out the individual bits of "Lost" generated discussion, and figuring out the ultimate answers were motivating. With "24," the topical and controversial subject matter (such as the use of torture by the military and government) was often thought provoking and gave viewers a shared platform to engage in important dialogs.
"What we call viral probably flits through snacks, clues, provocations, and puzzle pieces," Jenkins said. "It's not about brand; it's about a community that wants to engage with the brand. I may not be invested in a brand (yet), but if it becomes a resource for what matters to me, I will grab it and use it."
3. Viral media underestimates the agency of participants. Despite marketers' inability to find a formula for viral success, transmedia entertainment is built on consumers' conscious decisions, not accidents.
Jenkins explains that web communities are highly generative -- just look at how the "LOLcat" begat dozens of LOL sites. As stuff gets picked up and spread, it gets transformed; it gets mixed. The fact that audiences can retrofit your content to their interests is what enables it to be spread.
4. Viral media confuses the expectations of the community. We need to understand that if a content property spreads, it's not as a commodity but as a gift. "A gift is about the value of an item to the participants. There must be a meaningful exchange. Bonding through reciprocity and shared meaning around an object makes it meaningful," Jenkins said.
5. Viral media discounts the value generated by consumers. Jenkins contends that "viral" depreciates the value consumers hold for being able to put their mark on something. However, Jenkins also cautions about boring consumers by making it too easy for them to share your content. "Twitter becomes a central place where value gets produced in a community. If it's too easy to find content, it becomes less interesting to do it," he said.
Jodi Harris is senior editor at iMedia Connection.
On Twitter? Follow Jodi at @Joderama. Follow iMedia Connection at @iMediaTweet.
