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Towards Measuring Consistency in

Transmedial Narratives

Jonathan Barbarajbarbara@stmartins.edu

Conflict

ing

Inconsis

tent

Irreleva

nt

Cohesive

Consiste

nt

Background: UX Research

Board Games vs Video Games

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Transmedia Storytelling

StoryWorld

Story Story Story Story Story Story

Novel Novel Comics Film GameFilm IDS

Narrative Experience

TV Series

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Narrative Consistency

• Why is it difficult to measure?

• Why is it important?• How to measure it?

Con

sist

ency

?

Narrative Timeline 5

Overarching Narrative

The Transmedia Orchestra

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Measuring User Experience

• Methodologies– Heuristics– Questionnaires– Psychophysiological

• Limitations– Single session– Game mechanics– Social context

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Consistency in terms of…

• StoryWorld• Timeline & Events• Characters• Agency

http://www.dailyteachingtools.com/

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Levels of Consistency

• Consistency• Cohesion/Coherence• Multiple Distinct Stories • Infidelity and Fanagement• Conflicting Experience

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Proposal: Consistency Scale

Consistent

Cohesive

Irrelevant

Inconsistent

Conflicting

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Example Consistency Scale:across Dimension per Experience

Experiences

StoryWorld Consistent Cohesive Cohesive Cohesive Inconsistent

Events Consistent Cohesive Irrelevant Cohesive Conflicting

Characters Consistent Cohesive Irrelevant Cohesive Conflicting

Agency Cohesive Cohesive Irrelevant Conflicting Inconsistent

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Proposal: Consistency Scale

Consistent

Cohesive

Irrelevant

Inconsistent

Conflicting

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Discussion

• A tool for IDS and narrative games that share a transmedial world with other narrative experiences– Analysis stage– Prototype stage

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Pilot Research Application

• Analysis of movie game reviews– Coding of review into transmedia elements

• Into one of the five ratings on the scale– Collection of keywords used in review

• E.g. ‘authentic’, ‘return to Middle Earth’, ‘embellishment’

• Scale analysis to check for reliability (N > 160)• Validity against review scores• Questionnaire from keywords• Heuristics

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Scope of Consistency Analysis

• At individual character, event, context level– Too granular ?

• At dimensional level– Will inconsistencies

outshine consistencies?• At experience level– Too generic ?

Individual characters and eventsPer Dimension

(Storyworld,Events, Characters, Agency)

Overall Experience

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Summary

• What is Narrative Consistency across transmedia?

• Why and how do we measure it?• Consistency Scale proposal

References• Barbara, Jonathan. "Measuring User Experience in Board Games." International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations

(IJGCMS) 6.1 (2014): 64-79.• Barbara, Jonathan. "Measuring User Experience in Multiplayer Board Games.“ Games and Culture (2015): DOI:10.1177/1555412015593419• Klastrup, Lisbeth, and Susana Tosca. "Transmedial worlds-rethinking cyberworld design.“ IEEE, 2004.• Breum, Annette Corpuz, and Hanna Skov Midtgaard. "Story Bridges in Transmedia." Unpublished Master's Thesis. Aalborg University, Aalborg,

Denmark (2013).• Rowe, J.P., McQuiggan, S.W., Lester, J.C.: Narrative presence in intelligent learning environments. In: Working notes of the 2007 AAAI fall

symposium on intelligent narrativetechnologies. pp. 126–133 (2007).

• Riedl, Mark O., and R. Michael Young. "Character-focused narrative generation for execution in virtual worlds." Virtual Storytelling. Using Virtual RealityTechnologies for Storytelling. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2003. 47-56.

• Pizzi, D., Cavazza, M.: From debugging to authoring: Adapting productivity tools to narrative content description. In: Interactive Storytelling. pp. 285–296. Springer (2008).

• Murray, Janet Horowitz. Hamlet on the holodeck: The future of narrative in cyberspace. Simon and Schuster, 1997.• Dena, C.: Transmedia practice: Theorising the practice of expressing a fictional world across distinct media and environments,

http://elmcip.net/critical-writing/transmedia-practice-theorising-practice-expressing-fictional-world-across-distinct, (2010).• Paternò, F., Santoro, C.: A logical framework for multi-device user interfaces. In: Proceedings of the 4th ACM SIGCHI symposium on Engineering

interactive computing systems. pp. 45–50. ACM (2012)• Ritchie, G. 2007. Some empirical criteria for attributing creativity to a computer program. Minds and Machines 17(1):67–99• Jenkins, H.: Searching for the Origami Unicorn. In: Convergence Culture. pp. 95–134. New

York University Press, New York (2006). • Dena, C.: Do you have a big stick? Hand Made High Tech. 1 –5 (2011).• Constandinides, Costas. From Film Adaptation to Post-Celluloid Adaptation: Rethinking the Transition of Popular Narratives and Characters

across Old and New Media. Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2010.• Hochleitner, C., Hochleitner, W., Graf, C., Tscheligi, M.: A Heuristic Framework for Evaluating User Experience in Games. In: Game User

Experience Evaluation. pp. 187–206. Springer (2015).• Hills, M.: Torchwood’s trans-transmedia: Media tie-ins and brand “fanagement”’. Partici-pations. 9, 409–428 (2012).• Hocking, C.: Ludonarrative Dissonance in Bioshock http://clicknothing.typepad.com/click_nothing/2007/10/ludonarrative-d.html (2007)• Linderoth, J.: The Effort of Being in a Fictional World: Upkeyings and Laminated Frames in

MMORPGs: The Effort of Being in a Fictional World. Symb. Interact. 35, 474–492 (2012).• Harvey, C.: A Taxonomy Of Transmedia Storytelling. In: Storyworlds Across Me-dia’conference, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz (2011). 16

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Thank you!

I would love to hear yourQuestions

SuggestionsCommentsCriticisms

Jokes

Jonathan Barbarajbarbara@stmartins.edu

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Expected Transmedial ConsistencyLevel Description Exemplar

Consistent properties that are always constant across experiences Adaptation

Cohesive a variation from the expected norm that is justified by some believable motive or cause

Sequel

Irrelevant a new experience that was not noted in earlier experiences but has no impact on existing knowledge gained through prior experiences

Spin-off

Inconsistent new information that does not follow expectations and yet it does not break the original knowledge

Fanagement

Conflicting new experience results in an outcome that is directly opposite to that originally experienced

Parody

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Details on Pilot Research Application

• Analysis of movie game reviews– 88 games based on Lord of the Rings by Tolkien– More than 3 reviews each

• Analysis process– Coding of review into transmedia elements

• Into one of the five ratings on the scale– Collection of keywords used in review

• E.g. ‘authentic’, ‘return to Middle Earth’, ‘embellishment’