Impetus to Act

One of the most important aspects of cross-media storytelling is having the audience move to each unit of your story. Without the cross-media or cross-story movement, your work collapses. Areas of research and practice that you can utilise are the advertising industry (motivation to buy) and hypertext rhetoric (research into hyperlinked stories). On the former there are plenty of examples. An excellent resource is the International Database of Corporate Commands. This blog allows anyone to submit a ‘corporate command’, which is described as:

A Corporate Command is an instruction work, a call to action in the form of an imperative: “Just Do It”, “Turn on the Future”, “Live without Limits”, “Tap into great taste”, “Think different”, “Ride the light”. 

The funny part of this site is the project that is associated with it: The Institute for Infinitely Small Things actually do what is commanded and take photos. The hypothesis of the research project/performance is that the commands are

largely and consciously ignored by a public over-saturated with advertisements, function at the level of the infinitely small. Tiny events that do not disturb one’s consciousness or disrupt one’s identity as “free” agents, these commands seep under the surface of the individual and lay claim to the territory of the Deleuzian Virtual. 

The later (hypertext rhetoric) was a recent topic in my teaching. I asked my students to offer up examples of hyperlinks that motivate them to click. [No harm in utilising students for research!] Here are some funny sites that (ironically) inspire you to click:

The Really Big Button That Doesn’t Do Anything

Take your photo online for free

Do Not Push the Red Button

Click the Button

There are some more here at Nick Ciske’s site.

I know you, the readers of this blog, are very quiet (you like to watch), but I’m working on a paper that describes lots of different examples of cross-media motivation. If you have one to offer, please do so.