Media Convergence Research Centre and Centre for Culture and Creative Industries
Bath Spa University, Corsham Court Campus

One-Day Academic-Industry Workshop: Friday 24th November 2017

Confirmed Industry Speakers:

  • Alison Norrington, Creative Director at StoryCentral Ltd.
  • Lana Beckwith, Senior Content Development Manager at HarperCollins
  • Nataly Rios Goico, Creative Consultant at Conducttr
  • Kate Fitzpatrick, Senior Strategist at e3 Media
  • Tim Kindberg, CEO at Matter 2 Media Ltd.

Audiences now engage with media across multiple platforms, following the fictions of films and books across social media and video games, exploring brand universes and publishing enterprises across television, comics, websites, apps, etc. The transmedia phenomenon is now a defining strategy across the media industries for generating multiple revenue streams and for building closer relationships between content, brands and audiences. But when looking across online gaming, publishing, mobile media and digital marketing, which transmedia practices really make up the UK’s multiplatform landscape?

It can be claimed that the creative strategies used for producing content across multiple platforms are typically characterised by the sector in which they operate – conceptualised as ‘storytelling’ in film and television, as ‘content marketing’ in advertising, as ‘engagement’ in publishing, for example. These sector-specific understandings limit the innovative potential for stories, worlds and brands to be crafted as transmedia entities for the digital age.

Transmedia UK: Sector by Sector tackles this problem by beginning to map the ways in which different UK media sectors are now responding to ideas, concepts and pressures of transmediality. This academic-industry workshop aims to identify the strategies and principles that now make up the transmedia practices in and across online gaming, publishing, mobile media, digital marketing and beyond, examining which practices operate across these various sectors while exploring what it means to distinguish between storytelling, publishing, interactivity and marketing in today’s transmedia environment.

Exemplifying current approaches to transmediality in their respective sectors of online gaming, publishing, mobile media and digital marketing – as well as in sector-spanning transmedia consultancy contexts – the organisations involved in the workshop comprise:

  • Conducttr, a world-renowned audience engagement platform that integrates storytelling with gaming automation to build immersive, online and personalised gaming experiences for its users;
  • HarperCollins, one of the world’s foremost book publishers with a catalogue ranging from fiction to apps;
    e3 Media, one of the UK’s most awarded independent digital marketing agencies, providing creative solutions to real-world business problems;
  • Matter 2 Media Ltd., helping technologies grow to solve business problems and create experiences for users via mobile apps and social video;
  • StoryCentral Ltd., which works globally with such companies as Walt Disney Imagineering, SundanceTV/AMC Networks, FOX International and Penguin to incubate new franchises, participatory experiences, story architecture and audience engagement strategies.

This academic-industry workshop will feature presentations from staff representatives from all of these five industry partners, who will each discuss exactly what ‘transmedia’ or ‘multiplatform’ now means in their own sector-context.

We also invite proposals from researchers, postgraduate students and creative practitioners for short presentations that engage with the wider theme of ‘Transmedia UK’ from an academic perspective. Proposal topics may address, but are not limited to:

  • Sector-specific approaches to transmediality (e.g. transmedia gaming, transmedia marketing, etc.)
  • Understandings of ‘creativity’ and ‘commerce’ in the UK transmedia landscape
  • Definitions of ‘engagement’ and ‘interactivity’ in the UK transmedia landscape
  • Emerging transmedial convergences between online and offline media platforms
  • Implications for cultural policy and copyright in the UK transmedia landscape

Please send proposals (300 words approx.) for 15 minute presentations along with a short biography to Matthew Freeman (m.freeman@bathspa.ac.uk) and Charlie Tweed (c.tweed@bathspa.ac.uk) by no later than Friday 22nd September 2017.