Bibliography: What is Transmedia Storytelling? Concepts and Dilemmas
Alper, M. and Herr-Sheptenson, R. (2013). Transmedia play: Literacy across media. The National Association for Media Literacy Education Journal of Media Literacy Education, 5(2), 336-369.
Conley, T. L. (2013). [Book Review] Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. Available at https://www.hastac.org/blogs/tara-l-conley/2013/11/01/book-review-convergence-culture-where-old-and-new-media-collide
Conley, T.L. (2019). Black women and girls trending: A new(er) autohistoria-teoría. This Bridge We Call Communication: Anzaldúan Approaches to Theory, Method, and Praxis. Hernandez, L.H. and Guitierrez-Perez, R. (Eds). Lanham: Lexington Books.
Costanza-Chock, S. (2011). Se ve, se siente: Transmedia mobilization in the Los Angeles immigrant rights movement, Doctoral Dissertation, University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
Gambarato, R.R. and Tárcia, L.P.T. (2017). Transmedia Strategies in Journalism, Journalism Studies, 18(11), pp. 1381-1399.
Gomez, J. (2013). Starlight Runner Entertainment webpage: ‘What Is Transmedia?’. Available at: http://www.starlightrunner.com/transmedia (accessed 2 January 2015).
Jenkins H (2008). Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. Revised ed. New York: New York University Press.
Jenkins, H. (2011). Transmedia 202: Further Reflections. [Blog post, August 11]. Retrieved from http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2011/08/defining_transmedia_further_re.html
Jenkins, H. (March 21, 2007). “Transmedia Storytelling 101,” Confessions of An ACA-Fan, (blog), http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html
Jenkins, H. (January 15, 2013). “Transmedia storytelling: Moving Characters from Books to Films to Video Games Can Make Them Stronger and More Compelling,” MIT Technology Review, (blog), https://www.technologyreview.com/s/401760/transmedia-storytelling/
Jenkins, H., Clinton, K., Purushotma, R., Robison, A.J. & Weigel, M. (2006). Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education For the 21st Century. Chicago: The MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved August 23, 2018 from https://www.macfound.org/media/article_pdfs/JENKINS_WHITE_PAPER.PDF
Jenkins, H., Shresthova, S., Gamber-Thompson, L., Zimmerman, A.M. (2016). By Any Media Necessary: The New Youth Activism (http://connectedyouth.nyupress.org/book/9781479899982/) New York University Press.
Kerrigan, S. and Velikovsky, JT. (2015). “Examining documentary transmedia narratives through The Living History of Fort Scratchley project.” Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 22(3), pp. 250-268.
Kress, Gunther (2010). Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication. London: Routledge.
Marwick, A. (2018). “Why do people share fake news? A sociotechnical model of media effects.” Georgetown Law Technology Review, 2(2), 474-512.
Murray, R. (2017). “A survivor just like us? Lena Dunham and the politics of transmedia authorship and celebrity feminism.” Feminist Theory, 18(3), pp. 245-261.
O’Flynn S (2012). Documentary’s metamorphic form: Webdoc, interactive, transmedia, participatory and beyond. Studies in Documentary Film 6: 141–157.
Producers Guild of America (PGA) (2010). Code of credits: new media. Available at: http://www.producers-guild.org/?page1⁄4coc_nm#transmedia (accessed 2 January 2015).
Richter, A (2016). “The Marvel cinematic universe as a transmedia narrative.” Americana E-Journal of American Studies in Hungary, XII(1). Accessed on August 23, 2018 at http://americanaejournal.hu/vol12no1/richter
Srivastava, Lina. n.d. “About” and “Basic Framework.” Transmedia Activism. http://transmedia-activism.com/
St. Felix, D.(2015). Black youth are breaking the internet and seeing none of the profits. Fader. Accessed on August, 23, 2018: http://www.thefader.com/2015/12/03/on-fleek-peaches-monroee-meechie-viral-vines
Zimmerman, A. (2016). Transmedia testimonio: Examining undocumented youth’s political activism in the digital age. International Journal of Communication, 10, pp. 1886-1906.
Resources for Racial Equity in Educational Technology
Welcome participants!
Below are a few articles and resources referenced during the workshop. Feel free to share more resources in the comment section below. - Tara
5 Doubts about Data-Driven Schools (Anya Kamenetz via NPR).
Big Data in Education (Susan Fuhrman via Education Update Online).
Black Teens are Breaking the Internet and Seeing None of the Profits (Doreen St. Felix via The Fader).
Can Computer Programs Be Racist and Sexist? (Laura Sydell via NPR).
Children's Internet Protection Act (Federal Communications Commission).
Critical Questions for Big Data (danah boyd & Kate Crawford).
Digital Redlining, Access, and Privacy (Chris Gilliard via Common Sense Education).
Facilitating Learning (Rhonda Robinson, Michael Molenda, & Landra Rezabek, 2008).
"I feel like a despised insect: Coming of age under surveillance in New York (Jeanne Theorharis via The Intercept_).
Internet Acceptable Use and Safety Policy (NYC DOE).
ISTE 2016: Technology Alone Cannot Create Social Equality (Meg Conlan via Ed Tech Magazine).
Poverty, Race, and America's Educational System: Part 1: School Discipline and Students of Color (Firesteel).
Race After the Internet (Lisa Nakamura & Peter Chow-White, Eds., 2012).
Racial Equity Resource Guide (W.K. Kellogg Foundation).
The Blockchain for Education: An Introduction (Audrey Watters).
The Ideology of Blockchain (for Education) (Audrey Watters).
Using Technology Wisely: The Keys to Success in Schools (Harold Wenglinsky, 2005).
Why Do Pokemon Avoid Black Neighborhoods? (Cory Doctorow via BoingBoing).
Glossary of Terms
Big data - cultural, technological, and scholarly phenomenon that rests on the interplay of maximizing computational power and algorithmic accuracy to gather, analyze, link, and compare large data sets; drawing on large data sets to identify patterns in order to make economic, social, technical, and legal claims; the widespread belief that large data sets offer a higher form of intelligence and knowledge that can generate insights that were previously impossible, with the aura of truth, objectivity, and accuracy (boyd & Crawford, 2012).
Blockchain - a distributed database that provide an unalterable, (semi-)public record of digital transactions. Each block aggregates a timestamped batch of transactions to be included in the ledger – or rather, in the blockchain. Each block is identified by a cryptographic signature. These blocks are all back-linked; that is, they refer to the signature of the previous block in the chain, and that chain can be traced all the way back to the very first block created. As such, the blockchain contains an un-editable record of all the transactions made (Watters, 2016).
Digital divide - refers to the gap in computer access between affluent and poor, or white and minority, students (Wenglinsky, 2005).
Digital redlining - A set of policies, investment decisions, and IT practices that actively create and maintain class boundaries through structures that discriminate against specific groups. Digital redlining is a verb, the 'doing' of difference, a 'doing' whose consequences reinforce existing class structures (Gilliard, 2016).
Educational technology - the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using, and managing appropriate technological processes and resources (Robinson, Molenda, & Rezabek, 2008).
Racial equity - the condition that would be achieved if one's racial identity no longer predicted, in a statistical sense, how one fares. Racial equity is one part of racial justice, and included in the work to address root causes of inequities, not just their manifestations. This includes the elimination of policies, practices, attitudes and cultural messages that reinforce differential outcomes by race or fail to eliminate them (W.K. Kellogg Foundation).
Advice for 2014 Media Ideation Fellows
Great news for aspiring social and tech entrepreneurs! Media Ideation is looking for a brand new batch of fellows. Applications are officially open. I had the pleasure of being part of the inaugural class of Media Ideation fellows last year.
Several people have reached out asking for advice as they prepare their applications due January 31, 2014. I've compiled a Q&A list below based on questions people have been asking me. Feel free to tweet me @taralconley if you have additional questions or insights to provide. I'll be sure to update this post with new questions as they come in.
Best of luck to all the applicants!
Can you tell me about your experience with the fellowship?
Overall, my experience with the fellowship has been a good one. I was awarded the graduate level fellowship ($12,000), which afforded me the opportunity to develop TXT CONNECT over the course of 3 months. I’ve met people in the design and tech fields that I probably would not have met otherwise. Certainly there are moments when I wish I had more time and more funds to work with but I think these limitations force you to hone your idea into something that is realistic and feasible. The financial support from the fellowship enabled me to work closely with co-designers (youth in NYC), and as a result I was able to develop a mobile platform with young people and also write a research study based on our time spent together. My research study is currently under the review of an international journal.
How are you using the fellowship for 3 months for a project that will likely take much more time to develop?
As mentioned above, because you have a limited amount of time and funds to work with, the best advice I can give to those who are now applying is to narrow your focus and scope down to an idea that can be developed realistically and feasibly. Ask yourself: What can I realistically accomplish in three or six months? Remember that the fellowship is there to help you develop your idea, so use that time wisely. As visionaries we tend to think long-term, certainly keep this strategy in mind, but also incorporate short-term strategies as a way to scaffold, or build up through each phase.
Think about how best your time and funds can be utilized across various stages of development including technology and legal costs and building relationships over time. Really breakdown what development means for your project. It’s not just the technology itself that has to be developed, but also the relationships and partnerships with stakeholders, community members, and/or end users that also need to be developed and nurtured overtime. As it concerns legal issues and costs, you want to do some research about incorporation and/or terms of service. The fellowship offers access to legal consultants.
How did you choose your deliverables for the fellowship period?
Since TXT CONNECT was also my pilot study for my doctoral research, I already had a good idea of what my timeline looked like going into the fellowship. My deliverables were primarily based on a timeline I created early on. The fellowship asks you to outline a timeline, which I think is a great strategy to get you thinking about what and how you can accomplish various benchmarks and milestones. I knew I had 90 days to work with, so I thought strategically about what I could realistically accomplish each month, whether it was solidifying a name, organizing focus groups, or launching a beta version of the platform, each stage or phase was outlined before I began the fellowship. As you are going through the application process consider this the beginning stage of building your strategy.
What did you do during your fellowship?
I spent most of the fellowship designing and developing TXT CONNECT with co-designers in informal focus group settings. We met once or twice a week for 3 months. I also spent a good deal of time consulting with designers, partners, organizers, and lawyers to help think through development and towards implementation. Overall, I spent most of my time listening to other people and redesigning accordingly.
Tracing the Impact of Online Activism in the Renisha McBride Case
On November 2, 2013, 19-year-old Renisha McBride was fatally shot in the face on the porch of Detroit homeowner, Theodore Wafer. A few days after the shooting, a local protest was organized, conversations began to emerge on social media, and the story quickly got picked up by national news outlets. Here I ask, did online activism and organizing efforts, lead by writer, filmmaker, and activist dream hampton, force McBride's story into the national spotlight? I often argue that online organizing is a necessary political practice of the millennial generation (see, for example, young people involved in organizing the Jena Six protest, and the work of the Dream Defenders). But many of us wonder if our organizing efforts on social media like Facebook and Twitter actually work. I've put together a comprehensive analysis using an interactive timeline and infographic (or visual data storytelling) to illustrate that online organizing, particularly in this case, forced McBride's story into national headlines and quite possibly prompted swifter action from the prosecution to formally charge Theodore Wafer with second-degree murder on November 15, 2013.
With this analysis I want to understand, 1) how and in what ways online organizing efforts and activism played a role in forcing the McBride story into national headlines, and 2) if it is at all possible to measure the impact of online organizing involved in the McBride case.
I chose the McBride story as a case study because I care about the well-being of young Black women in the US, and because I had a virtual front seat to witness how writer, filmmaker, and activist dream hampton used Facebook and Twitter to organize the first public rally held in Detroit on November 7, 2013.
LISTEN: Tara L. Conley discusses study on WPFW 98.3 FM
The Timeline
With this timeline, I attempt to create a chronology of events that arguably led to criminal charges being filed in the death of Renisha McBride. Included on the interactive timeline are instances of online activism efforts on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, along with breaking national news stories from major media outlets (including curated stories from Storify) that followed.
The Story
Using data visualization tools, I created an infographic that tells a story about influential actors and movement-shifting processes involved with online activism efforts and breaking news coverage after McBride's death and immediately before charges were filed. Primary takeaways: Facebook reigns supreme as share king, The Huffington Post dominates as a news source and aggregator for the McBride story, and Twitter plays a quantitatively smaller role, but has a qualitatively significant impact on how the McBride story and narrative was distributed online and subsequently picked up by news sources.
How Do You Measure Impact?
I don't presume to know the definitive answer to this question; however, in this case it is possible to measure online organizing efforts that prompted the McBride story into the national spotlight. I chose to analyze a finite amount of time for a reason; thirteen days after McBride died the prosecution formally charged Theodore Wafer of second-degree murder. This relatively short timespan gave me enough material (but no too much material) to weed through news articles, SM status updates, and metrics to pull together somewhat of a cohesive story. Would there have been a formal charge made on November 15, 2013 without the groundswell of online organizing and national news coverage? Who knows. However, I do think that the grassroots organizing efforts that took place online and offline forced this story into the national spotlight. The timeline above indicates a noticeable spike in news coverage between 11/7/13 and 11/8/13, a few days after news broke about McBride's death and while the first public rally was being organized online. Also during this time, conversations about the fatal shooting began to emerge frequently on Twitter and Facebook.
But I also believe there are other key reasons why this story went viral.
1) dream hampton
The role of status (whether it be celebrity and/or social) to incite movement played a key role in why and how information about McBride's case went viral. Writer, filmmaker, and activist dream hampton has had a notable presence online over the past several years. Hampton also has a proven track record as a hip-hop journalist and community organizer. Hampton's online presence might describe both a celebrity and micro-celebrity status. As Dr. Alice Marwick notes, micro-celebrity status is an "emerging online practice" that involves strategically creating and maintaing an online persona. One might also consider hampton as having celebrity status, in the traditional and mainstream sense, since she has had fans and admirers before Twitter and Facebook became common online spaces for people to cultivate public audiences. Therefore, when dream tweets and updates her status, people tune in, including other influential folks who can type up press releases, organize on the ground protests, and produce news media content within the hour. All of these efforts, factored in with hampton's influence helped to shape what I believe to be a public (and newsworthy) display of resistance in the case of Renisha McBride.
2) Emotion
Emotion certainly played a role in why the story continued to pick up steam within the first week after McBride was fatally shot. It isn't a stretch to argue that people in this country are experiencing high levels of anxiety during an era of increasing gun violence, mass shootings, and state sanctioned racial profiling. Author Kiese Laymon illustrates this sort of anxiety best when he writes about the agony involved in (re)membering How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America. So when a story breaks about a child or young person being shot, it will likely appeal to the public's emotion and disposition towards racial politics and gun violence, because re-experiencing the fatal death of our children tends to takes a toll on our collective consciousness, even if we think we're numb to it all.
3) Transmedia Storytelling
Transmedia storytelling, or telling a story across multiple media platforms has been an adopted business model in the film industry and embraced by creative media makers for several decades, (see my book review on Convergence Culture detailing the Star Wars, The Matrix, and Harry Potter franchises). For this reason, transmedia storytelling played a key role in how McBride's story went from being a reported incident to a humanizing profile about a young 19-year-old Black woman from Detroit, Michigan. The #RenishaMcBride hashtag, created by dream hampton helped others across platforms like Twitter, YouTube (see videos located in timeline above), and Instagram to attach their own voices and life experiences to the case. Storify posts were also created (see Alyson Mier's Storify located in the timeline above) that archived personal stories and critiques about the erasure of young Black and brown lives in the US.
4) U.S. Racial Climate
A friend recently told me that the primary reason why the case got picked up nationally is because of race; that is to say, in an Obama era when obtuse pundits decry "post-racial American politics" and Stand Your Ground laws trump anti-racial profiling legislation, it is no surprise then that stories about non-Black men fatally gunning down unarmed Black teenagers become fodder for national media coverage. And while I believe the comparisons between Renisha McBride's death and Trayvon Martin's death are inaccurate, these comparisons do reflect pulsating racial tensions in the US. Admittedly, my friend's observations are incisive, but I don't believe race only played a primary role in the story getting picked up. Rather from my observations, I saw race talk as a component to the overall dynamic process involved in what I'm inarticulately calling the impactfulness of online organizing and activism.
Impactfulness
Impactfulness, or glimpses of effect, happens as a result of an elaborate nexus of mixed processes. When individuals like dream hampton and Kate Abbey-Lambertz of Huff Post Detroit do what they're supposed to do as concerned citizens and reporters, respectfully, then impactfulness can be traced. I say impactfulness, rather than impact, because when it comes to understanding connective online landscapes, movement appears like shifting blurred lines. Causation and correlation can be argued, but they aren't the primary means of analysis here. Even though I use a linear model to illustrate past events that took place after McBride's death, I also acknowledge that each event and individual (the writers, activists, and media makers) collectively moved this story towards a direction that encompasses empathy, action, and awareness. These whirlpooling processes (see Azuka Nzegwu's dope dissertation on whirlpooling as a theory of knowledge construction) might also appear like a germinating ecosystem and network wherein one organism or node grew because some other organism or node was already set in place and established (the use of mixed metaphors isn't unintentional). Though I understand fully the frustration felt by many activists and writers who would have preferred a swifter responses from the Dearborn Police department, I am proud of the work of these same activists and writers who woke up every morning with Renisha McBride on their minds and in their hearts. It was because of their efforts, regardless of lag in justice that will also tell the story of Theodore Wafer, the man now charged in the death of Renisha McBride.
Tara L. Conley is a doctoral candidate at Columbia University's Teachers College studying media as ecosystems of support. She's also the founder of MEDIA MAKE CHANGE. You can find her hovering over a dented Macbook Pro writing, tweeting, researching, and creating interactive web media. For more, visit www.taralconley.org.
Tara L. Conley Racial Literacy Roundtables Talk
On Monday, October 14, 2013 I presented at this year's first Racial Literacy Roundtables talk at Teachers College Columbia University. I presented on my current and ongoing research involving participatory design and working with young people who are involved in foster care and juvenile/criminal justice systems to develop TXT CONNECT, a free mobile platform for court-involved youth in NYC.
Highlights from the talk include:
- Ways to conceptualize and re-imagine participation.
- Reviewing youth demographic statistics in NYC, highlighting, in particular, the disproportionate number of Black and brown youth involved in juvenile/criminal justice systems and foster care.
- Reflecting on what it means to engage multiple stakeholders in the process of designing a technical and digital artifact with and for young people who are often disconnected and lack reliable access to information.
Some notable statistics (references included in slides below):
- 25% of youth (< 18-years-old) in NYC are considered Black/African American, yet make up 65% of the juvenile justice population in NYC, and 59% of the foster care population in NYC.
- 35.5% of youth (< 18-years-old) in NYC are considered Hispanic, and make up 30% of the juvenile justice population in NYC, and 27.4% of the foster care population in NYC.
- White youth make up 25% of the youth population in NYC, yet make up less than 5% of the juvenile justice and foster care population in NYC
This was the first time I was able to present my research, in depth, to my peers and others in the academic community. The conversations that emerged from the chat were inspiring, particularly as it had to do with the ways educators and researchers are currently thinking about how social and digital media can, and ought to be used as meaningful tools in the classroom and beyond.
So often we assume media are something young people simply and only consume, but in fact, we're learning that young people are also integral mediamakers and designers in the "stuff" they use.
Below is a highlight video from the talk.
Tara L. Conley Racial Literacy Roundtables Talk from Media Make Change on Vimeo.
I've also posted my presentation slides HERE.
For more information on my current research, please visit www.taralconley.org
Credits: Lalitha Vasudevan (photography and videography), Joe Riina-Ferrie (videography)