Friday 28 September 2012

"T" who must not be named

TRANSMEDIA! Argh! I said it! I am hereby officially uncool in the circles of those who prefer not to mention "you know what".

Why can't we use the word Transmedia? It's just "storytelling" a prominent speaker at an event on "distributed storytelling" explained recently. We should call it "Crossmedia" now (Wikipedia tells us this is also known as cross-media, cross-media entertainment, cross-media communication, transmedia).

Another producer of "you know what" told me it's just not a very aesthetic word. It's like the word "networking" - no one wants to be associated with it.

Well, as a person who is keen to keep in touch with the global community (and there is one, you can name thought leaders and case study projects) and curious to explore more and not really that keen in having a movie from 2001 and a competition where authors read their books come up when I google "storytelling" - I want a #transmedia hashtag! I want a transmedia meetup group, I want to know when I'm talking to someone whether they know what a Storyworld is in transmedia terms or not.

"Ha ha!" they laugh at my little quip - we shouldn't be naming things based on what makes a good twitter hashtag, ha ha! Why not? When most of us involved in "you know what" spend oodles of time on the internet and naming things in a way that organises thought around them has been crucial since way back when.

Is Crossmedia really more apt and appealing and cool than Transmedia? Sounds angry to me.

1 comment:

  1. UPDATE: After writing the above in exasperation, one of my colleagues who works in factual sales to broadcasters looked at me blankly when I said "transmedia".

    She then nodded and got all excited when I said "cross platform". For the first time ever - after reading blog entries and arguing with people trying to come up with fuzzy alternatives - I now feel perhaps we should be calling this "cross platform storytelling". My colleague understood that - and what's the point if "transmedia" alienates anyone who is not already versed in the lingo?

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