Until now, transmedia has been held to the obscenity test. You know it when you see it, but its hard to come up with a definition. When I interviewed Jim Babb for the Public Play issue, even he had trouble summing it up-and he has helped create several successful transmedia projects!
Thankfully, a group of transmedia-ists have came up with a list that explains the confounding storytelling technique.
Thesis 1. Claiming reality: Fiction supersedes reality, becoming as immersive as possible.
Thesis 2. Rabbit holes: The story offers multiple entry points to the experiencer, depending on the medium and situation in which it is used.
Thesis 3. Story universe: The experiencer no longer follows one dramatic thread but chooses among several intersecting storylines, which merge into a single story-universe.
And so on…
Or they could have just said it’s like reading a book while surfing the net, playing a videogame, playing on the playground, watching YouTube, going on a scavenger hunt, listening to an iPod, and sometimes dancing.
-Jason Johnson