Transmedia Storytelling

A Practical Guide to Narrative Across Platforms
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-041-27249-6
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 238 Seiten, Format (B × H): 178 mm x 254 mm

Transmedia Storytelling examines how successful stories move between platforms – from traditional media to digital formats – and diagnoses how platform capitalism has transformed transmedia storytelling from a democratic expansion of story worlds into a machinery of extraction.

Drawing on the author's dual expertise as both producer and academic, this book analyses how storytellers create worlds that work successfully across multiple formats through an abundance of case studies. These case studies span from Marvel and Stranger Things to diverse global storytelling ecologies, including Japanese manga serialization, Korean platform co-productions, Indian epic memory traditions, and Nollywood video-film networks. Readers will discover practical tools for developing cross-platform stories, methods for creating effective story bibles and world-building, techniques for adapting characters across different media, and approaches to inclusive storytelling that acknowledge coherence as labour. The book also confronts emerging challenges, including algorithmic personalization that fragments audiences into parallel monocultures, IP financialization that transforms franchises into liquid assets, and generative AI that automates the appearance of coherence while degrading narrative causality.

This book provides essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students undertaking digital storytelling, narrative theory, film and media production, as well as media studies classes. It also functions as a hands-on toolkit for industry professionals already working within film, gaming, and content creation.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate, Professional Reference, and Undergraduate Advanced

Autoren/Hrsg.

Magro, Jean Pierre

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio Filmproduktion, Filmtechnik
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio Filmdrehbücher
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunstformen, Kunsthandwerk Installations-, Aktions-, Computer- und Videokunst

Inhaltsverzeichnis

0. Introduction  Part I: Foundation  1. Transmedia Storytelling in a Fragmented Age 2. The Transmedia Architect's Toolkit  Part II: The Creator's Toolkit & Its Constraints  3. Strategic World-Building and the Story Bible 4. Narrative Capital: IP, Economics, and the Storyworld 5. Anatomy of a Collapse: Lessons from the Storyworld Graveyard  Part III: Applications and Dynamics  6. The Cognitive Hooks of Fragmented Narratives 7. Strategic Platform Design for Transmedia Narratives 8. Crafting Resilient Characters Across Media 9. Fandom and Community: The Audience as Co-Creator in the Platform Era  Part IV: The Evolving Landscape  10. AI as Author: Narrative in the Age of Machine Co-Creation 11. The Ethics of Transmedia Storytelling: Inclusion, Access, and Representation 12. The Future of Transmedia Stories

Über Autor(innen)

Jean Pierre Magro is a screenwriter, producer, and lecturer whose work investigates how stories survive their passage through industrial systems.  He writes and produces feature film and serial television, and has co-developed comics for IO Interactive's Hitman franchise. His writing credits include Blood on the Crown (with Harvey Keitel and Malcolm McDowell), Bulgarian Rhapsody (Bulgaria’s official entry, 87th Academy Awards®), Hounds of War (starring Frank Grillo and Robert Patrick). As producer, his credits include Not Without Hope (starring Zachary Levi, directed by Joe Carnahan). He began his career producing long-form history documentaries for European and American broadcasters including RAI, the History Channel, ARTE, and ZDF. He holds a PhD from the University of Exeter and lectures on screenwriting, comics, and games at universities across Europe.