storytelling 2.0

Storytelling 2.0 uses of cross-media strategies for new ways

of communicating

IPIN summer school

August 8th 2012

Kjetil Sandvik, associate professor, Media, Cognition and Communication,

University of Copenhagen

Agenda

• Focus on strategic storytelling, particularly in the field of communicating culture/cultural heritage in the light of digital, network-based and mobile media and the increasing use of web 2.0/social media-services.

• From a cross-media perspective we will focus on the opportunities and challenges which these new media technologies, platforms and services represent to cultural organizations and institutions:

• Storytelling 2.0 and a perpetual beta way of communicating focusing on dynamic and easy changeable formats with a strong focus on user participation, collaboration and co-creation).

MA in dramaturgy

PHD on computer-

Head of master pro-

gram in Cross-Media

Communication

Research: strategic

communication, new

media, storytelling etc.

This lecture

• Some brief words about storytelling and

cross-media communication – the general

• Rich media experiences: from ’experi-

ence+’ to ’experience universes’ – case

studies: X factor and Harry Potter

• Storytelling 2.0 – case study: an

augmented reality game

Storytelling classic

• A chain of events in time and space

• Told by someone (a narrator) to somebody

else (a reader or spectator)

• through a specific media (novel, movie, TV

series…)

• And in a specific discourse (a genre

defining the structure of the plot/storyline)

Storytelling 2.0: participation

• The ingredients are the same, but the role

of the recipient has changed

• The story hands out the possibility for

interaction:

– to influence the course of events

– to gain control over one or more characters

– to play a part in the storyline

• Storytelling Storydwelling

Labyrinthine story structure

Myst 2: Riven

Storytelling 2.0: co-creation

• Added the possibility for the participants to

be a part of creating the story,

– adding new parts to it,

– adding new characters,

– adding new narrative spaces and so on

• Storytelling Storyprocessing

Storyspace

World of Warcraft

Sandbox

Environment

Design tools

Concept

Second Life

Cross-media communication

• Collaborative interplay between different

• Each media playing its specific role and

delivering its part of the overall story

• Putting to play the specific strengths of

each media (the media does what it does

best!)

• Cross-media storytelling: putting both

‘storytelling classic’ and the two modes of

storytelling 2.0 to effective use!

• It is about getting through to the user

• It is about giving the user a broader and

richer media experience

• It is about giving the user the possibility to

get engaged and to be involved in the

media experience on different levels and

to various degrees

• It is about giving the user the possibility for

participation and co-creation.

The art of having different (old and new) media communicating together

• Each media has its special qualities

• Context: media evolution

–CMC challenges the role of the media types

• Context: participatory culture

–CMC challenges our models of communication

Challenges of digital media

Participatory (social) media/web 2.0:

• radical possibilities for dialogic processes, for collaboration and co-creation

• Communication as dynamic processes

• Fixed solutions changeable, adaptive and user-centered solutions

• Uses of web 2.0 apps mashups: combinations of cheap, effective and constantly updated and improved media technology

• Storytelling 2.0: perpetual beta way of communication

Context: participatory

culture and 2G experience

economy

Participatory culture

• “Patterns of media consumption have been

profoundly altered by a succession of new

media technologies which enable average

citizens to participate in the archiving,

annotation, appropriation, transformation,

and recirculation of media content. Partici-

patory culture refers to the new style of

consumerism that emerges in this environment.”

» Henry Jenkins

2G experience economy:

participation co-creation

Co-creation

• Boswijk et.al. focuses on the creative dialogue between supplier and customer instead of the supplier deciding what the customer wants:

• It builds upon communication as sharing of knowledge and the idea that value creation no longer takes place within the company but is created in the individual:

• “The development of meaningful-experience concepts cannot take place without the direct participation of the (potential) customer”.

Participation-based

communication • We do not just want to be communication

to (classical mass-media communication

format: one-to-many).

• We need new communication models

which focuses on various forms of user

involvement and user experiences (one-

to-one and many-to-many communication)

– personalization: online-services which adapt

to the users’ actions

Participation based

communication • We do not just want to be communication to

(classical mass-media communication format: one-to-many).

• We need new communication models which focuses on various forms of user involvement and user experiences (one-to-one and many-to-many communication) – personalization: online-services which adapt to

the users’ actions

– enabling dialogue (e.g. blogs), user participation (interactive elements creating unique user experiences) and user co-creation (possibility to create your own content).

LEGO Factory

• A co-creative story: The user in centre of the design process in accordance with LEGO’s corporate values:

• Stimulating creative play!

Users want to create their own toys

Co-creation: sharing and reworking design

Users want to design their own kitchens

Users want to tell their own stories

Users want to solve the crime mystery themselves

Users want to produce TV

themselves

Citizen Journalism

Users want to write the news themselves

Collective intelligence: crowdsourced, co-

creative creation of knowledge

’Traditional’ media com-

munication (storytelling classic)

Content Producer User

Control of flow

Inspired by Randy Haykin:

Multimedia demystified. A guide to

the world of multimedia from Apple Computer, 1994

Interpretation/use

Dialogic media communication

Control of flow

Performance

Feedback

Interpretation/use

Participatory media

communication

Control of flow

Production of content

Reconfiguration (editing)

Performance/Feedback Produser Interpretation/use

Produsage

Content

Producer

prodUser

Production of content

Use of content

Platform

prodUser prodUser

prodUser

Co-creation based communication model

Modes of user engagement

• Communication as composition (the combination of related media contents by established media (the book, the movie, the game, the website) and/or the combined use of various media and applications by audiences (using a player to watch a TV program, using a browser to monitor its website, and news applications to get updates)).

• Communication as collaboration (e.g., participating in debates relating to media content (chats, blogs, forums))

• Communication as participation (e.g., influencing the content of television, such as using SMS to vote for one’s favorite in a talent show)

• Communication as co-creation (the independent creation of media content, e.g. designing new features on Facebook)

• A networked, participatory environment enables all

participants to be users as well as producers of

information and knowledge - frequently in a hybrid

role of produser where usage is necessarily also

productive.

• Produsers engage not in a traditional form of

content production, but are instead involved in

produsage - the collaborative and continuous

building and extending of existing content in pursuit

of further improvement.

Axel Bruns: Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond:

From Production to Produsage, 2008

This lecture

• Rich media experiences: from

experience + to experience universes –

case studies: X factor and Harry Potter

The elements of the media

cirquit (John Fiske 1987)

• the primary text (the movie/tv-series)

• the secondary text (pr/marketing, background material, bonus material: surrounding the primary text)

• the tertiary text (the user’s own texts: are produced on the background of the primary and secondary text)

• Cross-media productions (and their new media cirquits) changes this hierarchy

New media cirquits • Cross-media production:

• Connects primary, secondary and tertiary texts into one common media text

• Embeds possibilities for participation

• Uses several communication matrixes: • One-to-many (the TV show in itself)

• One-to-one (chats)

• Many-to-many (debate forums, quizzes, games…)

• One-to-one-as-group (communities on e.g. FB)

• Attempt to create a sense of belonging in the user based on identification AND interaction

Convergence culture

• This circulation of media content - across different media systems, competing media economies, and national borders - depends heavily on consumer's active participation.

• Convergence should NOT be understood primarily as a technological process bringing together multiple media functions within the same devices.

• Instead, convergence represents a cultural shift as consumers are encouraged to seek out new information and make connections among dispersed media content.

» Henry Jenkins

Rich media experiences

• Experience through • engagement and identification

• participation

• collaboration

• co-creation

• Two types of rich media experience • Experience + (the augmentation of experience of

one specific media by implementing other media in the communication-structure, e.g. a website to a TV-show)

• Experience universe (interplay between different media: e.g. book, movies, games)

Experience +

X factor

Engagement and identification

• The use of the TV media’s strenghts: ‘Storytelling classic’ to create emotional intensification – A dramatic plot: the contest-format

– The use of classical dramatic agents (most prominent in the first two seasons of the show): the good vs. the bad

– Use of personal and emotionally loaded stories

– Use of emotionally manipulative editing: production of ’magic moments’ (the Poul Potts-trick!): close-ups, cross-editing, tears, tears and more tears…

– Website: augmentary media with a surplus of background materials about participants, their reactions to the judges and so on: extends the possibility for engagement and interaction and introduces a possibility for participation (guestbooks, chats, blogs…)

– Web 2.0: connecting and spreading the experience through the users’ own networks

There can only be one

winner…

The good…

…and the crybaby

…the bad…

The Outsider taking the prize

– Web 2.0: connecting and spreading the experience through the users’ own networks: RSS-feeds, apps for mobile phone, Facebook profile, Twitter profile.

Live integration of

social media during

Second Screen

– Web 2.0: connecting and spreading the experience through the users’ own networks: RSS-feeds, apps for mobile phone, Facebook profile, Twitter profile.

Storytelling 2.0

- participation

- co-creation

X-factor cross-media

communication experience+

Viewers

Website

Updates:

RSS, app,

FB, Twitter

Mobile phone

TV-show

DR blogs

Other media

Live events

Aftenshowet

Other DR

radio and TV

+ Aftenshowet’s and other

DR TV and radio shows’ website Red arrows = participation and co-creation

Backstage

May not be (fully) controlled

X-factor is more than just at TV

show • As a media event X-factor transgresses its

boundaries as a stand-alone TV show

• It invites the viewer not just to a TV experience but to become a participant in a collective course of events

• The viewer can get involved, participate and have influence on several levels

• And different media play specific – and coordinated – roles according to their strengths in creating this cross-media experience.

Experience universe

Harry Potter

Rich media experience

• The cross-media story about Harry Potter is not told by one single media which the other media relates to in a hierarchical sense.

• Although it all starts with the novels of J.K. Rowlings, the movies based on the novels can be seen quite independent of the novels.

• And the games (primarily) based on the movies, may also be played quite independently.

• As such the cross-media structure of Harry Potter as an experience universe consists of 7 books, 7 movies and 7 games in three interconnected series each dealing with the same narrative across the 3 media – a year in the life of Harry Potter at the Hogwarts school of sorcery.

• The possibility for engagement and

participation is ensured by the

implementation of websites related to each

novel/movie/game.

• The experience is richened by the

existence of websites (J.K. Rowling’s own

Potter-site, various fansites etc.), books

and games relating to the entire Harry

Potter-universe across the 7-year episodic

plot-structure etc.

Rich media experience

Harry Potter

and the

Sorcerers

(book)

Harry Potter

and the

Sorcerers

(movie)

Harry Potter

and the

Sorcerers

(game)

Website Website Website

Rowlings

official

website

Fansites, fx

Harry Potter

Fan Zone

Games based on

the entire

universe, e.g.

LEGO Harry

Potter Years 1-4

The entire Harry Potter universe

Book series Game series Film series

Books based

on the entire

universe, e.g.

Quidditch

throuout times

Merchan

Experience universe

• As a cross-media production Harry Potter produces not just an augmentation of the experience of a specific media.

• It creates an experience universe in which the user is offered a rich media experience in words, moving pictures and interactive action.

• Storytelling classic: novels, movies

• Storytelling 2.0 (participation): computer games, playable merchandise (e.g. LEGO), interactive features on official websites (e.g. jkrowling.com)

• Storytelling 2.0 (co-creation): fan-sites and other forums for users expanding on the HP-universe (e.g. by writing fanfiction)

This lecture

• Rich media experiences: from experience

+ to experience universes – case studies:

X factor and Harry Potter

Trust no-one!

A conspiracy play in the King’s

Kolding

“Mixed reality, ubiquitous

computing and augmented places

as format for communicating

culture”

Project scope

• Mobile phones (smart phones) used for communicating culture

• Fiction used for communicating history

• Experiments with Augmented Reality (at low costs)

• Creating an unorthodox city walk: – instead of an exhibition about renaissance

Kolding, we let the renaissance pop up in the city space

• The audience as participants and co-creators

Format not just for

the design process,

but for ’the exhi-

bitions’ itself

Project scope

• Mixed media:

– mobile phone as ’swizz army knife’

– mash-up of variety of services: low-cost and easy to adjust (Layar, Google Maps, Youtube and other file-sharing services)

• Ubiquitous computing:

– not so much embedded in the fabric of physical location

– but accessible everywhere by ways of…

• Mobile and location sensitive media:

• Over-layering locations with digital information:

• Augmentation!

Augmentation

• an informational, aesthetical and/or

emotional enhancement of our sense and

experience of place by use of various

framing strategies (e.g. Ian Rankin’s

Edinburgh) and media technologies (e.g. a

guided Rebus Tour).

Augmentation of places

• Construction of a kind of mixed reality

• the place has a status both as an actual

location in the physical world and as a

storyspace

• blend of fact and fiction

• blend of physical and mediated space

• blend of presentation and (user)

performance

• ‘charged spaces’ 100

Split reality vs Mixed reality

• Split reality: switching between mediated space (e.g. inside the mobile phone) and physical space

• Mixed reality: blending between mediated and physical space (e.g. looking at physical space through an ‘augumented reality browser’ on the mobile phone)

• Mixed reality implies a certain way of telling stories connecting the actual and the fictional space/the physical space and the mediated space

• (this is where Hikuin’s Vendetta goes wrong – and we try to make things right) 102

Kolding as augmented

storyspace • Creating a dramatic meta-story connecting different location specific

narrative tableaus containing various actual historical characters and events – (e.g. the co-operation between the public executioner and the

pharmacist selling human fat and pulverized sculls for medical use)

• within the same fiction frame providing connections between the narrative tableaus – (the castle is on fire (which is an actual event), a messenger is found

murdered, a conspiracy against the King may be afoot).

• The tale is taking place in the city space and interfaces with specific locations with historical significance – (e.g. the square where executions took place, the building housing the

pharmacy)

• Thus: a mediated version of renaissance Kolding is mapped onto the physical – and present-day – version of the city.

Kolding as augmented

storyspace • Creating a dramatic meta-story connecting different location

specific narrative tableaus containing various actual historical characters and events – (e.g. the co-operation between the public executioner and the

pharmacist selling human fat and crushed sculls for medical use)

• within the same fiction frame providing connections between the narrative tableaus – (the castle is on fire (which is an actual event), a messenger is

found murdered, a conspiracy against the King may be afoot).

• The tale is taking place in the city space and interfaces with specific locations with historical significance – (e.g. the square where executions took place, the building

housing the pharmacy)

• Thus: a mediated version of renaissance Kolding is mapped onto the physical – and present-day – version of the city.

Physical space as media

• The physical space is to some degree

functioning as media communicating specific

types of information, specific types of stories. • the city quarters with its streets, alleys, buildings,

ornamentations such as statues, gargoyles and so on

function as a narrative architecture like a theme/themed

park like Disneyland including buildings and landscapes

known from the catalog of Disney fairytales

• Several parts of the city of Kolding used as

location for the “Trust No-one!” project have

these qualities of being media in themselves,

as carriers of the story of Kolding.

Physical space as media

• With the use of mobile phones equipped

with navigation tools and augmented

reality browsers this information residing in

the very architecture and infrastructure of

the city may be pulled forth and made

visible, accessible and interactive from

the perspective of communicating history

and cultural heritage.

Storyspace

Meta-story Narrative tableaus

Summing up

• Augmentation as a storytelling 2.0-strategy makes us see things in new ways:

• Buildings are not just buildings, streets are not just streets – the carry stories, they carry cultural meaning

• This meaning may be experienced through an interplay between the physical locations of the city and the ubiquitous and locative information layers provided by mobile media.

• Connecting the dots, moving through physical and media space guessing the answer to who the murderer is constitutes the participatory and co-creative dimension.

Visit the project on Facebook

• https://www.facebook.com//Stolpaaingen#!

/Stolpaaingen

• Online, open-accessed development site

storytelling 2.0

tv medias

emotionally

classical

emotionally

augmented

rich media

classical

dramatic meta

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