Hamlet on the Holodeck, Chapter 3

While reading this chapter of Hamlet on the Holodeck, I was thinking about the way that users interact with their digital environments. According to the author, one of the essential properties of a digital environment is that it is spatial, something that actually limits other types of media. While books can only describe the environment and films can only show, digital stories allow their users to interact with their environment. In a digital environment, the user is free to explore their surroundings and is able to experience distance and the passing of time in a virtual setting. Because digital environments are spatial, the story is visualized and concrete; the user is situated right in the setting which creates a sense of immersion. This is important because the more immersed the user is in a story, the more emotionally connected he or she will feel.

Emotional connections are also reinforced by another one of the essential properties of digital environments: they are participatory. Users are engaged within the stories, able to induce behaviors from other characters or objects and elicit responses. Psychologically, we are reacting and interacting with this environment, which leads to questions of whether or not digital environments are real. The bigger question for me is, how separate are we from the digital environment? They have the ability to make us feel real emotions and connections, so they have influence over us, but how much? Can they make us form certain views or opinions or shape our thoughts and behavior?

The author brought up an interesting point early in the chapter about how people had fears that they would not be able to tell the difference between movie images and real life, and how they similarly had fears that we would soon not be able to tell the difference between talking to a human or talking to a computer. I remember when AOL instant messaging allowed users to chat with AIM Bots, such as SmarterChild. It was only an entertainment feature; the robots would respond based on your own responses and it was always clear that you were speaking to a robot. Now, I can pull out my phone and ask Siri to write a text for me or set a reminder. Already, computers are becoming more intelligent (another essential property of digital environments: encyclopedic) and more apt to do things; they are becoming more human, or perhaps more real.

Transmedia Storytelling - Part 2

In my last post, I noted Harry Potter/Pottermore as an example of transmedia storytelling. Pottermore also exemplifies worldbuilding, an idea discussed in chapter 5 of The Creator’s Guide to Transmedia Storytelling. Although Pottermore offers the same information as the Harry Potter books, it extends the information by expanding the world in which the story is set. Character backgrounds, explanations, terms, or concepts can be further explored on Pottermore. Worldbuilding can also be physical - I was born in Salem, Massachusetts and still live on the city’s border; as a city that grasps onto anything occult-like, Harry Potter was popular enough that a wand store selling the character’s wands was opened downtown. Worldbuilding allows the consumer to interact with or connect to the story in unique ways. Harry Potter and other transmedia stories are proof of how deeply invested an audience can be in a story.

Sometimes an audience is so involved with a story that fan culture develops, which has found a home on social media and other Internet platforms; because fans become so emotionally invested, transmedia storytelling has transformed the ways that social media can be used. As much as fans benefit from transmedia storytelling, having access to new information and more content, the story creators also greatly benefit from transmedia storytelling. It creates a better, more cohesive story in general purely because the characters and background stories are more drawn out and explained.

From the second reading, I liked the author’s comparison of the computer to a camera in the 1890’s – just at the beginning of its storytelling capabilities. This made me question the future of transmedia storytelling, as it has already advanced so much and still expands – such as fictional characters having their own real Twitter accounts. How far will storytelling go?

Transmedia Storytelling

Transmedia storytelling is essentially what we do on social media, where the individual is the “story” that is being told. This relates back to my third blog post where I talked about how people display and highlight different facets of their personalities on different social media platforms. We utilize transmedia storytelling methods without even realizing it, using several social media platforms to create a more accurate representation of ourselves in the virtual world and extend our stories. Some have even made careers of selling themselves as a story, such as YouTube celebrities, who usually maintain accounts with YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. While YouTube acts as the main platform for storytelling for these individuals, the other social media platforms contribute to their own story in different ways; Twitter allows them to promote projects or offer insight on particular topics whereas Snapchat lets their audience see them in their daily lives.

 The author often mentions that transmedia storytelling is closely related to marketing and argues that this form of storytelling can be used to do much more. While I agree that transmedia storytelling can be used for a variety of purposes, I think that there is always a marketing element to it. The author supports her argument by citing some of her own projects and others like educational docudramas and YouTube channels. On the surface, these are not made for marketing purposes, but documentaries and other campaigns with media presence often try to push the viewer/consumer into forming certain opinions or thinking in a certain way. Even on social media, individuals “market” themselves to other social media users, trying to depict their lives in a particular way. Some of the examples have more obvious marketing elements, such as the Half the Sky Movement encouraging the audience to join in the fight to end oppression against women or Bernie Sander’s presidential campaign, but even "Welcome to Pine Point" had messages about the importance of community and place. Every message has some importance or meaning to it that contributes to a larger idea. 

One example of transmedia storytelling that I thought about while reading was Pottermore/the Harry Potter franchise in general. Starting out as books, film adaptations and video games were created to progress the story. After the books were all written and the films were coming to an end, Pottermore was created as an interactive way to read the books with new information. Harry Potter has been brought brought to the stage, with a new play in the works. Even in 2016, Harry Potter fans can expect a new spin-off film series and a new book.

Superbowl 2016

Every year, millions of viewers tune into the Superbowl to watch a football game, a concert, and perhaps the biggest attraction, the commercials. For those like myself, the commercials are enough to garner interest in watching a game where I don’t even know which two teams will be playing; the annual event outright exemplifies our culture of consumerism. When it comes to advertising, the key is to grab the audience’s attention and somehow convince them that they need the advertised product. Keeping this in mind, advertising is a game of psychology.

Superbowl ads in particular are known for being funny which is why they are so popular. Each ad-maker must make an advertisement that appeals to the audience in an emotional way, such as the wiener dogs running toward the Ketchup family making the viewer laugh, which then creates a positive association with Heinz, both through laughter and images of puppies. Other brands try to sell positive messages in attempt to brand themselves in a better light, such as Budweiser using Helen Mirren as a celebrity endorsement (another marketing strategy) against drunk driving. The positive association then creates trust between the consumer and the brand, so even if the product is not being sold, the brand still is. The idea is to make the viewer form an emotional connection to the brand.

I also thought it was interesting that the Superbowl ads had a legacy to carry on; hashtags and websites dedicated to the ads were created post-game. Ads must be seen a number of times in order for the viewer to even register the commercial. Because the Superbowl is a one-time event, I think it was a clever marketing move to dedicate an entire website to the ads, allowing viewers to not only absorb the message but take notice of the brand.

Baym's Chapter 4

In online communities such as chatrooms or web forums, Baym is correct in that people tend to take on identities such as the “lurker,” “answer people,” and “discussion people.” On online community sites, people are often on there because they share a common interest. Baym gives several examples of this - groups for Buffy fans, groups for people with a particular health issue, etc. Modern social networks, however, are “egocentric and no two will be identical” (100). On a social network website, a person is the center of communication; there is no particular interest that brings people onto social media networks other than networking. Baym maintains that “identities are harder to develop” on social network sites, something that I disagree with (102).

Because there are so many social networks available online, it is uncommon for social network users to only use one platform. Social network users tend to be Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Snapchat, or any combination of these platforms. On each platform, people show off different aspects of themselves depending which site they are using. The norms of each social network constitute what aspect of our identity we show off on each particular site. A person may use Instagram to show off art but use Facebook to stay in touch with family, only posting about general life updates. However, these supposedly separate identities eventually all come together because we live in an age of convergence; it is possible to share an Instagram post to Facebook or Twitter. After Twitter became popular, Facebook introduced a hashtag feature. Suddenly, the separate identities of each social network come together to create a single, cohesive individual. Especially because social networks go through periods of popularity, social media users join and follow a similar set of people that they do on other social networks and are able to really “follow” this set, creating a sense of community.