The transmedia theory relates to a creative process of using multiple media environments in storytelling. People use diverse media channels to tell factious and other stories, creating an exciting way of expression or communicating to the audience. For example, a TV show is no longer exclusively expressed in the conventional media since it could come as a crafted book or a feature film, which are all parts of telling the same story. Furthermore, the contemporary convergence of media channels, including the emergence of the new media, has created a new and even more effective way of storytelling. Thus, authors use diverse channels to reach their audience and tell their stories. The setting and ideology of a story can easily burst beyond a book and across many other channels to appeal to a diverse audience. The story, “When Women Rule”, is a typical example of transmedia storytelling since the editor uses various media platforms or channels to narrate the story of women in politics.
“When Women Rule” is a case study that meets the criteria for transmedia storytelling. The Shorthand story edited by Valeria narrates the story of women in leadership. The story narrates the lives of female politicians in six different countries. The story focuses on the challenges that women in leadership faces and the difference they make in their respective societies. The story is told across media channels, including written features, images of the female leaders, videos, and illustrations. The story shows how the editing team effectively brings together various aspects of a single story to create a cohesive whole in diverse media formats and platforms. The editing team uses a strong tool to engage with the audience to tell an interesting and appealing story.
The transmedia story is told across numerous platforms to appeal to the audience and communicate the message about the need for gender empowerment in society. The tendency to use multiple channels is informed by the need to increase audience participation in the narrative. Besides, each platform increases the audience’ enjoyment by ensuring that they meet the target audience’s needs. The use of multiple channels places the audience at the center of the storytelling process, meaning that the author must focus the work to ensure that they communicate with the reader or viewer. The editorial team also plays a key role in selecting the media channel or platform to achieve the storytelling objectives. The process is necessary to take the audience on an emotional journey and ensure constant interest and engagement. The case study reveals the need for the editorial team to work with the audience in mind.
The “When Women Rule” case study provides a common idea regarding the use of multiple channels in storytelling. The transmedia narrative communicates the endless stream of events that occur in different environments and impacts people’s lives. For example, the issue of gender creates an interesting case study for the audience to follow changes in society, such as women acceding to a leadership position. While the subject might appear commonplace in society and with minimal impact, storytelling creates an interesting narrative that keeps the audience engaged. In the case study, the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s editorial team works tirelessly to create interesting narratives from ordinary life events, such as women in leadership. The team uses journalistic storytelling and Shorthand to create stories that can be communicated via different media channels or platforms. The tool allows them to move around and shift across platforms to communicate their message to the audience.
The editing team uses transmedia storytelling to build a world that the audience would love to be a part of and participate fully. They strategically decide how to deliver their story across written and visual elements to keep the audience interested and entertained. For example, while the written text could tell the story about the place of women in leadership, visuals make it more appealing and easy to disperse across media platforms, including the new media. Written text, video, and photography play an important role in narrating the story from different perspectives and to engage a diverse audience. They allow the editorial team to tell the story in visually compelling and appealing manner, attracting and maintaining the audience’s interest. For example, in telling the story, “When Women Rule”, the team uses various features like the two column scrollmation and media sections, to communicate to the diverse audience. Furthermore, they increase readership since different people are interested in different media channels or platforms.
When creating the story, “When Women Rule”, the editorial team presented text and visual content before transitioning it to a video clip. It is easy to share the content across various media platforms through contemporary media convergence, such as TV, film, and social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Thus, while a reader could come across the story in the company’s website, others will find a video clip on YouTube narrating the same content. One person can also come across the video clip and transition to other media platforms to find more details or get more entertainment. Thus, the world-building and audience engagement strategies that the editorial team uses are transitioning the content from one format to another, aiming to share it across multiple media platforms. The strategies enable them to shift how they deliver the story to the audience across the written and visual contents. The story is presented in text and appealing images that the audience will find exciting to view as they read the content.
The “When Women Rule” case study is a successful element of transmedia storytelling since it provides the narrative across media channels. Shorthand provides an easy-to-use tool to create transmedia stories by transitioning and shifting from one format and media channel to another. Such tools have allowed authors and editors to create transmedia stories since they can easily create them in one format and change into another. The “When Women Rule” case study can be found in print media and as a video clip with the same message, but different delivery methods. Besides, it allows the team and audience to take advantage of the diversity of media platforms in the current convergent environment. The story is presented in an engaging and elegant manner across media channels. The story is told across diverse channels since none offers a satisfying perspective. People move across media channels to satisfy their curiosity, which is the reason Valeria created “When Women Rule” case study as a transmedia story. Besides, people have the luxury of multiple channels in the modern converged media environment, creating an opportunity for authors and editors to explore them and achieve audience engagement. Generally, The “When Women Rule” case study is a typical example of a transmedia story.