Transmedia Storytelling: Modern Science Fiction
Explores transmedia storytelling by investigating how science fiction stories are told across different media, such as the short story, the novel, the screenplay, moving image, and games. Students consider issues of aesthetics, authorship, and genre, while also contextualizing discussion within the broader framework of the political issues raised by film, TV, and other kinds of science fiction texts. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.
Spring 2014
Transmedia narratives exist across multiple storytelling platforms, using the advantages of each to enhance the experience of the audience. No matter which medium nor how many, the heart of any successful transmedia project is a good story. In this class we will spend time on the basics of solid storytelling in speculative fiction before we move on to how to translate those elements into various media. We will then explore how different presentations in different media can complement and enhance our storytelling. While we will read scholarly articles and discuss ideas about transmedia, this is primarily a class in making speculative fiction transmedia projects. We will analyze the strengths and weaknesses of various mediums and consider how they complement each other, and how by using several different media we can give the audience a more complete, rewarding, and immersive experience.
Readings
- SES #: 6 · TOPICS: Center of Narrative III – Building the Story · READINGS: Complete [SC]
- Look at Capitol Couture .
Prerequisites & course information
Subject meets with 21W.763[J] , CMS.309[J] Prereq: None Acad Year 2027-2028: G (Spring) Acad Year 2028-2029: Not offered 3-2-7 units
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026–2027
- MIT OpenCourseWare ↗Spring 2014
- MIT OCW syllabus ↗
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.