Add meaning not media

The old adage too many cooks spoiling the broth, could be applied to Transmedia practice. In other words if you over egg your cake, speaking metaphorically here of course, then perhaps your message will be too difficult to digest leaving the audience wondering what on earth you are talking about.

We are now faced with “Prosumers”, so an audience that can produce as well as consume. In the introduction to Rethinking the Media Audience the editor Pertti Alasuutari cites Hall (1999, p 3). “At a certain point [….] the broadcasting structure must yield an encoded message in the form of a meaningful discourse. The institutional-societal relations of production must pass into and thorough modes of a language for its products to be ‘realized’.” He continues: “Before this message can have an ‘effect’ (however defined), or satisfy a ‘need’ or be put to ‘use’, it must first be perceived as meaningful discourse and meaningfully de-coded”.

Bottom line people have to feel that the message is worth engaging with. So we need to add benefit in meaning and not just scatter gun a wooly or weak message.

The transmedia message that my group is getting its teeth into, is to deliver information about the arts in the Bournemouth area to an audience of 30+. The challenge therefore is to make the information appealing. We’ve got to go beyond the ‘so what’ factor and create engagement and demand.