As Vivian said in her post, Jenkins defines transmedia storytelling as a text that goes across “multiple platforms” in “Searching for the Origami Unicorn”. The only other examples I could think of when it comes to transmedia storytelling I could really only think of “Star Wars” and Disney productions as well. This is probably because I don’t have an online presence and really only use the internet for research, so I’m going to look at transmedia storytelling in “Star Wars” through Suzanne Scott’s analyzation of the topic.
As we all know “Star Wars” became a huge success when “A New Hope” came out in the 70s. It is one of the best examples of transmedia storytelling because all the inventive storylines that were from games, books, and comics. There is also the tv show “Star Wars: Rebels” which is through Disney XD. Not only that but because of “Star Wars” rich fictional world the storyline was also changed when fans created their own interpretations. This includes contribution such as fan fiction and fan art. Jenkins also talks about how what makes stories like these transmedia is how they are “collaborative” and “participatory” which Scott looks at this in her analyzation.
Scott discusses this through the fictional world “Star Wars” “[expands] beyond the boundaries” of its text, which in this circumstance are the original movies from the 70s. This is what allows there to be so many story lines explored through multiple media beyond film by collaborative authors for commercial reasons as well as those made by fans which are obviously not commercial. In particular, she mentions the other alien races, which she says because we do not know much about them, can be expanded on through different story lines.
Since Disney bought LucasFilm, they are creating the next “wave” of transmedia storytelling for “Star Wars” (Scott). This is through the establishment of more “films, TV series, novels, and comic books that are official acknowledged as central to the Star Wars fictional universe” which Disney is referring to as “New Unified Canon”.
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Works Cited
Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York University Press, 2008.
“Transmedia Storytelling with Star Wars.” Radio Television Film | Moody College, 12 July 2017,
rtf.utexas.edu/news/transmedia-storytelling-star-wars.