The Transmedia Dynamics of TV3

The newscast “Especial 9-N,” produced by TV3 (Catalonia) in association with TV3's news channel 3/24, presents transmediatic components by combining multiplatform journalistic coverage and citizen participation in online social media. The program aired on November 9, 2014, the date of the non-binding referendum on the sovereignty of Catalonia, held by Generalitat, the regional government. This chapter discusses in what measure the editorial strategy adopted optimized social engagement with the news and favored the circulation of broadcast journalism on online social media. The analysis was based on the systematic observation of the program and its records on online social media, to assess the nature and the intensity of the communicational activity. It was concluded that TV3's institutional identification with aspects related to the region's sovereignty, in the context of significant social mobilization around the theme, fostered transmedia circulation and social engagement with the news story.

Potential Mediations of Hashtags Within Transmedia Journalism

In the last few years, sociopolitical events have been marked by the presence of hashtags on social networks, creating a direct dialogue with street protests. This chapter aims to investigate how media activism movements appropriate hashtags to expand the narrative through social engagement. In this sense, hashtags appear as signic processes that perform a mediating function. They articulate common positioning that creates hybrid and transmedia storytelling using online and offline dynamics. From the theoretical-methodological support of semiotics by Charles Sanders Peirce and the principles of transmedia, this study analyzes the news production by the Brazilian media activism group Mídia Ninja [Ninja Media]. The results point to a transmedia journalism anchored to the social use of hashtags by the association of new signs to semiosis, generating provisional action habits from collateral experience.

Transmedia Journalism and the City

This chapter discusses the participatory flair of transmedia journalism within the concreteness of urban spaces by examining The Great British Property Scandal (TGBPS), a transmedia experience designed to inform and engage the public and offer alternative solutions to the long-standing housing crisis in the United Kingdom. The theoretical framework is centered on transmedia storytelling applied to journalism in the scope of urban spaces and participatory culture. The methodological approach of the case study is based on Gambarato's (2013) transmedia analytical model and applied to TGBPS to depict how transmedia strategies within urban spaces collaborated to influence social change. TGBPS is a pertinent example of transmedia journalism within the liquid society, integrating mobile technologies into daily processes with the potential for enhanced localness, customization, and mobility within the urban fabric.

Transmedia Television Journalism in Brazil

One of the main features of television is its appeal to transmediation—a production model oriented for the distribution of additional and/or associated content of a specific production in different media and technology platforms. In each field of television production (entertainment, journalism, advertising, etc.), transmediation takes various demonstrations and functions. The interest of the authors here is to show how transmedia strategies are part of the construction of the éthos in TV journalism, based on the analysis of Jornal da Record News, the first Brazilian newscast to be introduced as a transmedia production.

A Matter of Time

Among all factors that compose the journalistic routine, time plays an important role. It delimitates the period to produce content. Transmedia projects often need a faster pace than usual articles, mostly because the reporters need to plan before they leave newsrooms to capture content and, depending on the media used, work on different platforms to deliver the whole content. This chapter discusses the process behind three transmedia journalistic cases: Black Hawk Down (published by Philadelphia Enquirer, in 1997), Inside Disaster (released by PTV, in 2010), and Harvest of Change (published by Des Moines Register, in 2014). Using the case study method, they will be discussed, analyzing the process behind their publication. This reflection highlights how the adoption of tools and usage of paths to connect or publicize content on different media increased the relevance not only of time to create but the effort dedicated to plan the transmedia strategy.

Viral News Content, Instantaneity, and Newsworthiness Criteria

Social networks have modified the activities of the press, the actions of audiences, and the perceptions of societies. The strategies displayed to avoid losing consumers aim at fulfilling the audience's needs and the gap between the producers' and the consumers' interests tends to widen. This leads to a crisis point in news financing, affecting the traditional logic of the media industry; while advertisers are now able to reach their audiences without its mediation, viralization and instantaneity force the media to publish information incompatible with the public interest as considered by the press. In this way, traditional newsworthiness criteria are replaced by other criteria that redefine the concept of information. The aim of this chapter is to analyze the way in which instantaneity and viralization have affected not only the journalistic activity but also the information selection criteria and the audiences' input on the web.

2016 Rio Summer Olympics and the Transmedia Journalism of Planned Events

The news coverage of the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics in Brazil encompassed multiple media platforms and the flow of information in the intersection between mass media (especially television) and social media (especially Snapchat and Instagram). The 2016 Rio Olympics was the Games of Snapchat stories and filters along with Instagram stories for news coverage. This chapter aims to investigate how transmedia features are structured and implemented in the news coverage of the 2016 Olympics by the official Brazilian broadcaster, Globo Network. The theoretical framework focuses on transmedia journalism of planned events, and the methodology is based on the analytical model for transmedia news coverage of planned events developed by Gambarato and Tárcia (2017). The research findings indicate that the coverage presented systematic content expanded throughout various media platforms (a core characteristic of transmedia journalism) but involved limited mechanisms of audience engagement, particularly in terms of citizen participation.

The Transmedia Script for Nonfictional Narratives

This chapter proposes a journey through an experience of transmedia journalism developed by the multimedia communication team at the National University of Rosario, Argentina, focusing on the transformation of the current media ecosystem, the characteristics assumed by transmedia storytelling in a nonfictional field, and the development of the transmedia script for the project Women for Sale, a transmedia documentary that addresses the trafficking of people for the purposes of sexual exploitation. The creation of a complex narrative universe and the definitions of stories, platforms, user experiences, and the execution of a transmedia project are analyzed in light of what has been learned in this experience of journalistic production.

The Transmedia Revitalization of Investigative Journalism

This chapter analyzes the transmediality of the record-breaking podcast Serial with regard to three specific contexts: organizational structures and innovation, journalistic production, and user engagement. This case study shows that the transmedia approach of Serial cannot only revitalize long-form journalism, particularly in the case of investigative journalism, but it can also strengthen forms of slow and networked journalism. This case allows us to look at fan communities not only as an engaged audience, useful for commercial purposes, but also as a source for story development and production—even if both the journalistic production and the user engagement are confronted with specific ethical issues with regard to selective transparency and participation.

Future of Food

The National Geographic Society (NGS) has always sought to incorporate new ways of media production into its working routine, thus defining standards of journalism both in technical and narrative terms. As a logical result, the NGS also relies on cross media strategies, focusing on transmedia storytelling in order to connect its audience. The “Future of Food” project is one of the largest transmedia projects in journalism. The chapter first outlines the concept of transmedia storytelling and discusses 10 qualities in the context of journalism. Secondly, the authors systematically discuss the case study “Future of Food” by applying the transmedia qualities to the project. This provides insights into the modes and combinations of story elements and allows to draw attention to challenges and opportunities for researchers, producers, and users.