Transmedia Communication in the 21st Century

I am comparing and contrasting video interviews with Henry Jenkins about culture and how mass media communication was changing at the turn of the century—transmedia.

Here are the videos I will be referencing: Henry Jenkins on Transmedia

Henry Jenkins Interview

Transmedia - Words of the World

Henry Jenkins was a director of the Comparative Media Studies program at MIT. He has also authored/co-authored over 20 books at this point, discussing transmedia, culture, and communications. (Fun fact! He got his PhD at UW-Madison!)

In the first interview, Henry Jenkins explains that storytelling has always been part of human history. In the media age, though, stories became controlled by major media companies and news outlets. Now, “average citizens” can tell their own stories. People remix, react, edit, and transform media. Jenkins says, “We take control of the media of our lives, and that’s the essence of convergence culture.” He describes convergence culture as every image, sound, story, brand, and relationship flowing across different media channels. With convergence, groups can work through complex topics together. He uses The Matrix as an example of transmedia storytelling, showing how it expanded beyond the films into comics, video games, theater, and fan creations.

In the second interview, Jenkins digs deeper into media convergence. He says social and cultural change happens first, and then technology catches up to support it. Once that tech becomes reliable, people use it widely to push for change. He says group intelligence will bring even bigger rewards over time. It is already shaping how younger generations think and learn. They can multitask—like giving a lecture while playing a video game—which leaves older generations behind. This constant layer of information and media will only keep growing. Processing information is second nature now.

The third video looks more at what transmedia actually is. She explains that while storytelling across mediums has a long history, transmedia is newer because people now think carefully about which platform tells each part best. She calls it experiential drama—we can feel it, live it, and experience it—rather than just being told it.

What I love about looking at these interviews together is seeing how they all connect while offering different angles on the same idea. Jenkins focuses on how media is shifting from being controlled by big companies to being shaped by everyday people, while also showing how that shift is changing how we think, learn, and collaborate. The second interview really highlights how this isn’t just about technology itself, but about people using technology to build on cultural change that’s already happening, and how that creates an entirely new kind of shared intelligence. The third video adds this emotional layer by showing that transmedia is about creating experiences, not just telling stories. All of this is super relevant to video games because games are one of the most immersive and interactive forms of media we have. They naturally pull in elements from all these other platforms—film, art, writing, music—and invite players to actively shape the experience. Understanding transmedia helps us design games that don’t just tell stories, but let players live in them, contribute to them, and carry those stories across other media. It shows how powerful games can be as part of this growing web of participatory culture.