Article 1

SCOLARI,carlos alberto (2009) Transmedia Storytelling:Implicit Consumers, Narrative Worlds, and Branding in Contemporary Media Production [online] Article from International Journal of Communication 3, 586-606 last accessed 20 February 2010 at:http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc/article/viewFile/477/336

This article discusses 'Transmedia Storytelling'and the use of 'semiotics' to analyse different types of transmedia. This article implies that transmedia products are beneficial for the economic suggesting that perhaps products like this are used just to create more money. But also transmedia increases the target audience therefore creating a wider brand. Scolari says that from a semiotics perspective a text constructs its reader therefore a film/game/book etc all have levels for different people depending creating a multilayer of perspectives. He uses the example of 24 to show how something can become transmedia in every way from on the Internet to graphic novels to games etc.He says that it becomes a complex semiotic device for multiple implicit meanings and generating consumers. A certain text has to have a strong narrative to be able to transfer across different types of media. The idea of brands are also shown as in narrative worlds as a brand or the brand as a narrative world.
With Harry Potter Scolari suggests that transmedia storytelling is important when creating a brand which is recognisable due to the style, values, narrative and characters which become so widely known.
This reference covers the idea of semiotics and narrative within transmedia storytelling which clearly are important when discussing the idea of branding and peoples consumption or perspectives of different sorts of media.