Oct. 27: Jenkins Chapter 3

Reading Jenkins Chapter 3 about the Matrix and the complexities of how it evolved from a movie, to a game, to comics, and then wrapping back up was something I had never looked at before now. I love the original first Matrix, after that the trilogy seemed to take on a more niche market than I was prepared for. While the trilogy itself was pretty good, I think that the third fell onto what many trilogies do for me, which is a perplexing end. Jenkins mentioned that in order to create something like The Matrix you have to have a world complete with its own terminology that people can decipher, add to, and play on. This reminds me of the Lord of the Rings phenomenon and the language of the people that seemed to mold into reality wherein everyday folks were speaking elvish...hmmm. I'm not quite sure how to respond to that, but we do live in a world where I am very social online to an array of strangers I do not know. The term transmedia isn't defined very clearly in Jenkins's book, and leads me to think that it is the adaptation of entertainment across many platforms of media. However, to correct myself, I did a little research on this term.

Of course, Wikipedia would be the immediate Top Hit for a definition, and because we have discussed it's validity as far as being reliable, I can use their definition as a starting point. Their definition is as follows: "From a production standpoint, it involves creating content that engages an audience using various techniques to permeate their daily lives. In order to achieve this engagement, a Transmedia production will develop stories across multiple forms of media in order to deliver unique pieces of content over multiple channels. Importantly, these pieces of content are not only linked together (overtly or subtly), but are in narrative sync with each other." (Wikipedia).

I like this idea because it gives "True Fans" that we discussed earlier an avenue to explore different parts of the world created by entertainment. True Fans may be emersed in every part of the matrix. I actually find this to be a very clever idea, though I am quite sure it is an adaptation of what advertisers have been doing for years...just on a level more relevant to the new social media around today.