Abstract

Narratives are our portals into the world. They have the ability to teach, store collective and individual experiences into memory, describe societies, shape opinions and form the future. They reveal how we perceive ourselves and others, our histories and how we want to walk into the future. Most recently, they are also used as marketing and branding tools but have also found applications in the social sciences, such as clinical psychology and education. Once the privileged domain of storytelling, language (transcribed and written) has given way to a variety of domains and ways of narrative expressions. These spread across media, which are dramatically altering the way we tell (and sell) stories. The question that arises is if this alters the stories themselves. The ability to interpret, create and represent oneself in stories that effectively communicate one’s ideas is currently a matter of successful participation in economic, social and political structures. This is what this module is about. It aims to introduce you to a series of concepts, trends and ideas that are relevant to contemporary interpretations of transmedia narrative. Based on the theorization of Henry Jenkins’ ‘transmedia storytelling’ (Jenkins 2008) and drawing from other researchers building upon and criticism of his theoretical approach, this module is attempting to develop a working understanding of the principles, challenges and practical applications of multimodal, transmedial and intellectual storytelling.