A model that I look at closely for my developing list of design elements for cross-media stories is that of ARGs (alternate reality games). There are two books on the subject and recently, an interview with ‘puppet-masters’ Elan Lee and Sean Stewart at Cultural Gutter.
I’m looking at a few different models to use for inspiration in the creation of my cross-media model. One of them is military systems. The Future Combat System is a “joint (across all the military services) networked (connected via advanced communications) system of systems (one large system made up of 18 individual systems, the network, and most importantly, the Soldier)”. It has four ‘building blocks’: the System-of-Systems Common Operating Environment (SOSCOE); Battle Command (BC) Software; communications and computers (CC); and intelligence, reconnaissance and survelliance (ISR) systems. I view a cross-media work (a franchise, enhanced television, reality tv, ARG and so on) as a system, indeed, a polysystem. There are some interesting correlations:
The Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS) network allows the FCS Family-of-Systems (FoS) to operate as a cohesive system-of-systems where the whole of its capabilities is greater than the sum of its parts.
Check out the videos on website, you will not believe that it is a serious site and not a game (I wonder who they’re marketing to?). It is getting harder to tell the difference between America’s Army and the actual army.
TNT has launced a “micro-site” for the US TV series Wanted. On the site is an inteactive comic which is probably the most interesting I have seen in a while. It has fixed elements (content that cannot be changed) and little games that are part of the comics story. The mediation of the player experience through the mutable and fixed elements was quite good. There is a mini-game, for example, where you can fly the helicopter the characters in the comic are hanging on to. After completing that element you turn the page to a cell with a character congratulating the other for making it on the helicopter: which functions as a congratulation to the player as well. It has been created by Studiocom.
On the topic of enhanced television, I’ve been reading a paper on websites and TV shows: Cross-Media Use in Electronic Media: The Role of Cable Television Web Sites in Cable Television Network Branding and Viewership. The paper, in the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, decribes the finding of a study: that younger Internet users are more likely to use television websites than older Internet users; and that the usage of the websites “positively predicts viewer loyalty, subscriber loyalty, and to a lesser extent, new subscriber attraction for cable networks” (620). Lots of good statistics in this paper about enhanced television usage and its role in branding. Another couple of papers I’m reading from the journal:
Dutta-Bergman, M.J. (2004) ‘Complementarity in Consumption of News Types Across Traditional and New Media’ in Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Vol. 48, 1, pp:41-60
Lang, A., M. Shin, S.D. Bradley, Z. Wang, S. Lee and D. Potter (2005) ‘Wait! Don’t Turn That Dial! More Excitement to Come! The Effects of Story Length and Production Pacing in Local Television News on Channel Changing Behavior and Information Processing in a Free Choice Environment’ in Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Vol. 49, 1, pp:3-22
And the first one I cited: Ha, L. and S.M. Chan-Olmsted (2004) ‘Cross-Media Use in Electronic Media: The Role of Cable Television Web Sites in Cable Television Network Branding and Viewership’ in Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Vol. 49, 4, pp:620-645
