Beyond the Power of Audio in Native Transmedia Storytelling: Synergies between Fiction and Reality

Abstract

This paper analyses a transmedia universe featuring a web series revolving around interpersonal relations and gender issues, which was then expanded using a musical podcast and a live concert. The project aims to discover production and narrative development strategies that define a native transmedia production, and how it might be expanded to build stories around complex and multidimensional contemporary themes. An analysis model is proposed to identify the fundamental structural characteristics of the transmedia universe. The research is initially powered by a qualitative approach to ethnographic fieldwork by means of participant observation, and subsequently, the analysis of the interrelationship between the elements that make up the transmedia system. The results show the planning behind constructing transmedia storytelling that intertwines fiction and reality to assist in understanding complex and multidimensional topics such as gender identity or intergenerational relations. The conclusions show that the type of transmedia construction being presented and the position of the audio in that universe is motivated by reinforcing the creation of content that is covered in fiction, but with particular relevance in the real world.