A taxonomy of transmedia storytelling

In this chapter I argue that transmedia storytelling is more fruitfully understood as a broad category to describe instances of convergent storytelling but also varieties of pre-digital, licensed tie-in production that anticipate convergence, as well as contemporary cross-media production that incorporates elements of the analogue and the digital. I contend that there are significant parallels between these kinds of narrativizing-with regard to production, organization, and reception-to make grouping them into the same genus a logical course of action. At the same time, I propound a method for differentiating kinds of transmedia storytelling from one another rooted in the idea of what I term "legally proscribed memory." I argue that varieties of cross-media storytelling are linked by their reliance on memory not only in terms of what a creator asks the audience to remember but also in terms of what a creator requires the audience to forget. In all cases of professional transmedia production, the use of memory is circumscribed by legally binding documents that dictate what elements of a franchise can and cannot be used and in what context. This idea is not new. In 1950 the renowned sociologist Maurice Halbwachs went some way in articulating the interrelationship between the law and remembering.