PLATCOM PROJECT
As proven, the idea of ‘transmedia’—on this case, ‘transmedia literacy’—continues to present a invaluable framework for varied analysis tasks that share frequent parts. Our focus is on casual, ‘wild’ studying that happens outdoors conventional instructional establishments, typically inside extremely technological and interactive environments like digital platforms. We’re significantly curious about how these practices may be recognized, tailored, and integrated into formal training settings.
As I already mentioned, when working with adolescents, we make it some extent to reject the notion of them as passive victims of the media—a perspective that has dominated conventional media literacy for years. This marks a key distinction between our method and extra standard views. Whereas we strongly advocate for the crucial and moral use of digital applied sciences, we firmly oppose the narrative that positions each teen or grownup individual as inherently weak and defenseless to media affect.
Again to the use of ‘transmedia’ in different fields, simply as our crew continues to work below the umbrella of ‘transmedia literacy,’ different researchers can pursue their research inside related frameworks. Lengthy dwell transmedia!
There are digital platforms whose info literacy just isn’t dominated by the public, others that may quickly exist following consumption and habits developments, this has all the time existed. However what I actually consider is that there’s nonetheless an absence of strategic, modern, and clever imaginative and prescient in storytelling tasks that incorporate a lot of what prosumers produce. What do you concentrate on it?
The media trade is all the time keen to encourage viewers or consumer participation, but it typically struggles to meaningfully combine that content material into its ecosystem. It is no shock that almost all fanfiction or user-generated content material finally ends up on platforms like Wattpad, social media, or wiki pages. The media trade’s DNA nonetheless displays its broadcasting roots, when audiences have been handled as mere numbers relatively than collaborators.
Probably the most compelling examples of participation, nonetheless, typically emerge in non-fiction transmedia tasks. Documentaries or civic engagement initiatives, as an example, genuinely incorporate viewers contributions, permitting their productions to deeply form and inform the narrative. A transmedia mission like QUIPU from Perú or MUJERES EN VENTA from Argentina can be unimaginable with out the participation of Peruvian or Argentinian ladies sharing their tales. In distinction, the Marvel universe may simply proceed thriving with out integrating the fanfiction that has grown round it. It most likely would not be the similar, however it will nonetheless exist. This highlights a key distinction in how participation may be valued and utilized relying on the context.
Very quickly quantum computing will attain home use, a brand new communication paradigm for transmitting, emitting, and receiving info in tens of millions of information factors at the velocity of mild. Human information seize and processing capability just isn’t sufficient. And from it, with AI, platforms will definitely emerge that may affect relationships between folks. Primarily based on this, what are the challenges for storytelling on this situation that’s more and more approaching? What, in your opinion, can be a storytelling technique for the new generations that represents them and is smart?
If we think about narrative fashions, I doubt we’ll see any main adjustments—simply as there haven’t been over the previous millennia. Sure narrative buildings have endured for 1000’s of years, and it’s onerous to think about radical transformative shifts. What’s altering, nonetheless, are the methods these narratives are expressed and the social practices that activate, disseminate, and amplify them. The combination of generative AI gives intriguing alternatives for exploring the creation of new narrative worlds. Early experiments, past deepfake movies, are venturing into dreamlike and surreal territories, formed by AI’s inherent hallucinations and errors. On the online game entrance, procedural technology is one other key development. Whereas not fully new—it was utilized in video games from Tetris (1985) to No Man’s Sky (2016) —it reworked gaming by chopping prices and unlocking new artistic potentialities for digital environments. But, a lot stays to be explored, and it’s too early to suggest detailed situations for the future. Actuality, as all the time, will shock us—for higher or worse.
Different subjects, akin to the seize and processing of human information or the use of platforms for surveillance, clearly lie outdoors the realm of narrative. If there’s one factor we’ve discovered from finding out the evolution of the media ecosystem—and socio-technological networks usually—it’s that long-term predictions are practically not possible. At greatest, we are able to goal to envision situations, which are sometimes extremely numerous, inside the quick time period. However, as I discussed earlier, actuality all the time manages to shock us in the finish.
Nonetheless on the challenges of digital platforms talked about in the questions above, there are others which can be already imposed in our more and more algorithmic society during which information storage and change doesn’t happen in a clear and safe method. In Algorithms of Resistance, Bonini & Treré (2024) state that “platform energy is thus inseparable from the capability of people to exert some kind of company and resistance over it”. Throughout 2020 and 2024, your analysis group developed the PLATCOM mission. May you discuss the important contributions of this mission? Do you consider that these concerned are conscious of how a lot the algorithm influences their work and lives?
For 4 years, we carried out analysis on platform labor in Spain. Our focus was not on content material creation however relatively on the most weak staff on this ecosystem—these engaged in ‘final mile’ duties akin to elder or pet care, supply companies, or driving. That is an extremely advanced panorama, one that can not be decreased solely to the dynamics of oppression and resistance (though these dynamics undeniably exist). In the Spanish context, a good portion of these staff keep away from union organizations or collective resistance actions. Maybe the excessive quantity of undocumented immigrants working in the sector or the notion of it as a transient and short-term exercise reinforces this angle.
Our fieldwork uncovered some fascinating insights. For example, we encountered staff who, throughout the similar interview, praised the ‘freedom’ that the platform system afforded them—for instance, the capability to work with out a boss and to handle their schedules autonomously—whereas concurrently criticizing the platforms for using ‘slave-like’ exploitative practices. On this context, we developed an idea: slaverty (esclavertad), encapsulating this paradox. This time period displays only one of the many contradictory and conflict-laden facets that emerged from our examine.
One factor grew to become clear to us: platforms can’t be analyzed solely by way of the lens of algorithms or the ruthless use of private information. If we restrict our evaluation to that dimension, we miss a lot of the image. For example, let me draw a historic comparability. Tv was a hegemonic medium for a number of generations, and its enterprise mannequin was constructed on a quantitative system—scores—that decided the price per second of promoting spots. That mannequin formed the content material being produced and intensified the competitors amongst totally different media. The query is: Can we cut back tv to that quantitative dimension alone, to the temporal exploitation of consideration for monetization by way of promoting? Clearly not. Past its enterprise mannequin, tv reworked how tens of millions of folks perceived themselves and their understanding of the world; it exported the American Approach of Life but additionally helped rural-to-urban migrants in Latin America perceive city residing. Simply as we can not impoverish the evaluation of tv by lowering it to scores, we should not impoverish the evaluation of platforms by lowering them to algorithms. A good portion of our social lives is constructed and unfolds on platforms. Issues occur on platforms—many issues—past the inevitable and problematic algorithmic dimension.
In accordance to your latest e-book (On the Evolution of Media, 2023), “Media Evolution is a proto-discipline that research media change from a long-term, holistic, intermedia, reticular, and advanced level of view. The purpose of this proto-discipline just isn’t to predict the future of the media ecosystem however relatively to perceive its previous and up to date transformations.” May you elaborate on the way you understand the important contributions of this attitude?
Media Evolution examines how mediated communication evolves over time, focusing on the dynamic interaction between media and their reciprocal processes throughout totally different historic and cultural contexts. Drawing on organic ideas like ‘emergence,’ ‘adaptation,’ ‘survival,’ or ‘extinction,’ it gives a framework for understanding how media develop, compete, and combine inside a dynamic ecosystem. Central to this attitude are concepts akin to ‘coevolution’ and‘intermediality,’ which spotlight the mutual influences between rising and conventional media. This method strikes past linear historic narratives, presenting media landscapes as interconnected, evolving networks.
However why the want for a brand new idea or analysis discipline? Is Media Historical past or Archaeology inadequate? Not like Media Historical past, which focuses on chronological developments, Media Evolution emphasizes intermediality by uncovering systemic patterns and figuring out adaptive methods inside media ecosystems. Let me clarify. Historical past of communication books typically inform us that clay tablets got here first, adopted by papyrus scrolls, then manuscript books on parchment, and lastly, in the fifteenth century, the printed e-book. Nevertheless, what they hardly ever talk about is what occurred to papyrus after parchment grew to become widespread, or how manuscript books managed to survive after the invention of Gutenberg’s press. The identical gaps seem when discussing the twentieth century: How did cinema change with the emergence of tv or video video games? How did radio adapt after the rise of tv? That is what Media Evolution seeks to tackle. Media Archaeology, for its half, delves into particular units and practices, typically avoiding broad theoretical frameworks. Collectively, these approaches are complementary: Media Historical past outlines common timelines, Media Archaeology uncovers forgotten units and practices, and Media Evolution gives a broad framework for understanding the long-term dynamics of media change.
Hyperlinks
References
Bonini, T., & Treré, E. (2024). Algorithms of resistance: the on a regular basis struggle in opposition to platform energy. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Jenkins, H. (2024). “Foreword: What We Imply by “Transmedia”. In: Finn, E. Imagining transmedia. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Scolari, C.A. (2018). Transmedia literacy in the new media ecology. White Paper of the H2020 TRANSLITERACY mission. Barcelona: Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
Scolari, C.A. (2019). Transmedia Is Dead. Long Live Transmedia! (Or Life, Passion and the Decline of a Concept). Letra. Imagen. Sonido: Ciudad Mediatizada, ISSN 1851-8931, Nº. 20, 2019, Pags. 69-92.
Scolari, C.A. (2023). On the Evolution of Media. London: Routledge (Spanish version: Sobre la evolución de los medios,Ampersand, 2024).
Scolari, C.A., Piña, M. and Guerrero-Pico, M. (2024). Communication platforms, workforce and informal learning. White Paper of the PLATCOM mission. Barcelona: Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
Biography
Renata Frade is a tech feminism PhD candidate at the Universidade de Aveiro (DigiMedia/DeCa). Cátedra Oscar Sala/ Instituto de Estudos Avançados/Universidade de São Paulo Synthetic Intelligence researcher. Journalist (B.A. in Social Communication from PUC-Rio College) and M.A. in Literature from UERJ. Henry Jenkins´ transmedia alumni and attendee at M.I.T., Rede Globo TV and Nave faculty occasions/programs. Speaker, activist, neighborhood supervisor, professor and content material producer on ladies in tech, variety, inclusion and transmedia since 2010 (akin to Gartner worldwide symposium, Ladies in Tech Brazil, Mídia Ninja, Digitalks, MobileTime and many others). Revealed in 13 tutorial and fiction books (poetry and quick tales). Renata Frade is curious about Literature, Activism, Feminism, Civic Creativeness, Know-how, Digital Humanities, Ciberculture, HCI.
