by Jean-Yves Le Moine, published on 15.07.2009

The word “transmedia” was popularized by Henry Jenkins, director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at the MIT Media Lab, in one of his books entitled Convergence Culture. According to Jenkins, transmedia are complementary stories told on several media. He distinguishes transmedia from cross-media and multimedia, in which content is reiterated on several media, and give examples like Matrix, Lost and Survivor to illustrate the concept.

Faris Yakob, a senior technology strategist at Naked Communications in London, popularized the concept in the advertising scene by declaring that transmedia went further than the 360 model. To prove his point, he produced two simple diagrams.

One for 360, which shows that the selfsame content is reiterated in all the different media.

The other for transmedia, which shows that different complementary contents create a brand community involving the participation of the greatest number of people.

Drawing on the discussions he had sparked in creative circles, Henry Jenkins refined his concept by fusing it with his work on participatory and fan culture: “A transmedia story unfolds across multiple media platforms”, creating a universe of content in which the audience can participate.

Here more information on transmediaplanning (in french)