3PMjournal_2010s2

3pm Journal of Digital Research & Publishing
to improve the experience of a ‘grand narrative’. He describes how significant it is that each
extension of the narrative, whether it is video game, film or television series can stand on
its own as an ‘individually enjoyable entity’ (2007.13).
Negative Capability / Franchise for this ‘new audience’
Mark Deuze is a contemporary theorist who underlines the problematization of popularity in
convergent culture. When a text is transformed as popular culture, the one thing permeating
in the minds of producers at all times is profit. The Lord of The Ring’s film trilogy alone
grossed a total of 2.91 billion dollars never lone the profits from gaming, merchandise and
online profits. Media companies have incentives to spread the narrative or brand across
as many different media platforms as possible. However, the inconsistencies across these
platforms can be potentially detrimental to the understanding of a franchise.
Geoffrey Long suggests that if a film such as the Matrix were like any ordinary nontransmedia
franchise, the film would stand as an independent phenomenon (2000. 89)
Instead the first film was so successful that producers edged the storytellers to create sequels
with huge budgets for exceptional special effects, and slightly inconsistent and confusing
storylines. This is further illustrated through the creation of ‘Enter the Matrix’ and the
‘Animatrix’ mini-series which had a mostly negative reception from audiences because
content was both related and irrelevant to the films. Long refers to this kind of transmedia
storytelling as capitalizing on ‘negative capability’ where the “implicit meanings confuse
audiences”(2000. 56). Thus highlighting how media conglomerates and the ‘cash grubby’
producers can threaten the integrity of the narrative.
So how is Lord of the Rings so popular when one can completely alter the sequences
in the narrative? Long suggests that if the transmedia extensions can keep up with the
tones, structures and characters of the ‘world’ then the plot becomes irrelevant and the
audience can even feel empowered and enthralled as entrepreneurs of the narrative (2000.
60). Therefore my interaction with the playstation game is irrelevant to my emotional
engagement with the novel because the game stands as an independent re-imagination
of the narrative and is significant as an individual strand of the Lord of the Rings
paraphernalia.
New technological achievements do not necessarily mean the extinction of older media,
but rather their recombination. Society is a network of hunters and gatherers, chasing
down bits of the story across media channels, attempting to fully experience every fictional
world. Thus new kinds of audiences have formed, and producers are creating narratives
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