Transmedia Storytelling and Mega-Narration: Audiovisual Production in Converged Media Environments

Abstract

Technological change leads to a multiplicity of channels and platforms which deliver audiovisual content. The fragmentation of film and television leads also to fragmented audiences. Diverse audiences use different media platforms to get films and television shows whenever and wherever they want. The chapter deals with two parts of the consequences of digitization in converged media environments: first, the level of cultural developments in textual production, namely transmedia storytelling as an industrial practice to engage audiences with television drama series as multi-layered media texts driven by technological and economic changes, and second, mega-narration as an industrial practice to engage audiences with a story universe as global brand. The article argues that transmedia storytelling is a consequence of media convergence and deconvergence in multi-platform media environments.