Post 3

Transmedia could be defined as telling one story or one idea in different ways. For example, the Harry Potter story was told through movies, books, video games, theme parks, and attire. We see this same example repeat its self with most movies that come out lately, especially from big producers like Disney, Universal and so on. Henry Jenkins states on his blog, "Transmedia needs to be understood as a shift in how culture gets produced and consumed, a different way of organizing the dispersal of media content across media platforms." 

This image is the Comedy Central show South Park, which besides it being on television, it is soon coming out with an ARG video game. The show also has a blog where people can talk about the latest episodes and other things related to the show merchandise such as keychains, posters, and t-shits. 

On the other hand there is multimedia. This is where all types of media are put together in one place. For example using videos, pictures, writing, ect. This can be found in websites like The New York Times where they tell news using multiple media such as that mentioned above. This form can also be found in social network websites such as Facebook where they have pictures, games and videos all together, while at the same time connecting through writing. 

By using transmedia to tell a story, people are more likely to engage in it. For the creators of the story is beneficial to provide it across many platforms because more people are going to hear it and like it. Using South Park as an example, people can not only watch a new episode every Wednesday night but now they can also be their favorite characters while playing as them in the video game. 

In addition, the use of multiple platforms can create a new audience. If a kid can't watch South Park because it is adult comedy, they can still play the video games that are suitable for young ones to play because they don't involve all the offensive language. Here we see how using the same story with a different approach can change the the content slightly. In this case the change was in a positive way since it can expand the viewers.  The same thing can be seen with Harry Potter, maybe some people are not interested in buying the books, but they can still watch the movies, and if it weren't for the movies they would have never even have heard of the story.

Finally, using all these forms of media to bring across and idea not only creates new audiences, but also engages the old ones. While transmedia and multimedia are similar and easily confusable, it is best to understand the differences in order to be able to clearly see how they can change media and how and why we are all being hooked on all the new stories.