Media Studies · Media Studies: Interpreting, Evaluating and Producing Complex Media

Media Forms in a Converged World: Hybrids, Platforms and Transmedia

2.1About 70 minutes

Learning goals

I can identify general and specific characteristics of a variety of media forms, including newer and hybrid forms.
I can explain how a form's characteristics shape content and create meaning.
I can explain convergence, remediation, platform affordances and transmedia storytelling.

Words to know

convergence
Once-separate media meeting on the same devices, platforms and companies.

remediation
New media forms borrowing and refashioning older ones.

hybrid form
A form that mixes others, such as the mockumentary or advertorial.

platform affordance
What a platform makes easy or possible (time limits, loops, remixing, comments).

transmedia storytelling
One story world told across several forms, each adding something new.

aspect ratio
The shape of a frame, written width:height (16:9, 9:16, 1:1).

Remember from Grade 10

In Grade 10 you learned that every media form has general characteristics (shared with other forms, such as interactive or uses moving images) and specific characteristics (particular to that form, such as a podcast's episode structure), and that these shape content and create meaning.

In Grade 11 you'll apply that idea to a media world where forms converge, borrow from each other and spread one story across many platforms.

Hook: one story, three forms

An invented local story: the city plans to close the volunteer-run outdoor rink on Elm Street.

A 45-second vertical video shows kids skating, then a close-up of a sign: Rink closing? Big captions. A trending sound plays underneath.
A 1200-word news article explains the budget, quotes a councillor, a volunteer and a parent, and includes a chart of rink attendance.
A 20-minute podcast episode follows one volunteer flooding the ice at 5 a.m., with the scrape of shovels and her stories about 30 winters at the rink.

Each is about the rink. But each tells a different story. The form decides what fits.

How form shapes content

Forms differ in their characteristics:

Length and pace: short forms favour one emotional moment; long forms allow context, multiple voices and complexity.
Senses used: sound only, images only, or both. Audio invites listeners to imagine; video shows.
Frame shape: landscape, vertical or square changes what fits on screen.
Interactivity: can the audience click, comment, remix or choose a path?
Permanence: does it disappear after a day, or stay searchable for years?
Distribution: is it pushed to people by an algorithm, or sought out by them?

In the hook, the video can't fit the budget details; the article can't capture the sound of skates on ice; the podcast can't be skimmed in five seconds. Form shapes content, and so it shapes meaning.

The shape of the frame is a characteristic of a form. A 16:9 frame suits wide landscapes and groups; a 9:16 frame suits one face or one person filmed head to toe, which changes what creators choose to show.

Forms in a converged world

Convergence: once-separate media (newspaper, radio, TV, phone) now meet on the same devices and platforms. A newspaper publishes podcasts; a TV network posts vertical clips.
Remediation: new forms borrow and refashion older ones. Media scholars Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin used this term in 1999. Podcasts remediate radio; news websites remediate newspapers; video essays remediate the documentary and the school essay.
Hybrid forms: forms that mix others, such as the mockumentary (fiction in documentary style), the docudrama (real events with actors), native advertising or the advertorial (ads designed to look like articles), and the interactive documentary (a web documentary the audience navigates; the National Film Board of Canada has produced many).
Platform affordances: what a platform makes easy or possible: a time limit, loops, captions, stitching or remixing another user's video, ephemeral stories, links, comments. Affordances push creators toward certain kinds of content.
Transmedia storytelling: a term popularized by Henry Jenkins for a single story world told across several forms, where each form adds something rather than repeating the same content.

Transmedia storytelling: each form adds something different to one story world (an invented example). The TV series carries the main plot; the podcast, game, social accounts and comic each reveal what the others can't.

Worked example

Let's compare how two forms shape the Elm Street rink story

Identify the general and specific characteristics of the vertical video and the podcast episode about the Elm Street rink, and explain how each shapes content and meaning.

Vertical video, general characteristics: moving images and sound; short; designed for phones; pushed by an algorithm.
Vertical video, specific characteristics: a 9:16 frame, captions for sound-off viewing, a trending sound, a hook in the first two seconds, looping.
How these shape content: the narrow frame suits one skater or one sign, not the whole rink and its neighbourhood. The two-second hook requires a dramatic opening (Rink closing?). There's no room for the budget or the city's side.
Meaning created: an emotional message: something we love is under threat. The issue may seem simpler and more one-sided than it is.
Podcast, general characteristics: audio only; long-form; chosen by listeners; often heard while doing something else.
Podcast, specific characteristics: a host's voice, ambient sound (scraping shovels, skate blades), interviews, an episode structure with a cold open and segments.
How these shape content: sound lets listeners imagine a 5 a.m. flood; length allows the volunteer's 30 years of stories and the city's budget explanation.
Meaning created: a richer message: this rink is a community's history kept alive by a few people, and saving it is complicated.

The vertical video's short length, frame and algorithmic distribution shape an urgent, emotional, simplified message. The podcast's audio, length and interview structure shape a detailed, human, more complex one. Same topic, different meaning, because of form.

Just for fun

Funny but true: in 2004, journalist Ben Hammersley, writing in The Guardian, suggested several possible names for the new practice of downloadable audio shows, including podcasting. One word stuck; the others are now trivia.

Hands-on activity

Form swap

You need: one short media text you enjoy (a 30-second video, a meme, a news headline, a song lyric) and paper.

List its general and specific characteristics.
Imagine remaking it in a very different form: a 30-second video as a 500-word article, a news headline as a podcast cold open, a meme as a museum placard.
Write or sketch the opening of the new version (about 100 words or a 3-panel sketch).
Answer: What did I have to add? What did I have to cut? How did the meaning change?
Name one platform affordance of the original form that the new form doesn't have.

What to look for: accurate characteristics, a real attempt at the new form's conventions, and a clear explanation of how the meaning changed because of the form.

Your turn

What is the difference between a general and a specific characteristic of a media form?

Define remediation and give an example.

What is a platform affordance?

Define transmedia storytelling.

Why can't the vertical video include the city's budget explanation?

Name two hybrid forms and define one.

More practice: warm-up

Which aspect ratio is vertical: 16:9 or 9:16?

Is audio only a characteristic of a podcast or of a photo essay?

What is convergence?

What is an advertorial?

Who popularized the term transmedia storytelling?

More practice: on your own

Explain how permanence (or the lack of it) affects content in an ephemeral story post.

How does a news website remediate a print newspaper? Give two examples.

Why might native advertising be considered a problem for audiences?

Choose a story you know (book, film or game) and suggest one transmedia extension, explaining what it would add.

Explain how a 9:16 frame changes what a creator shows compared with 16:9.

Challenge

Choose two forms for a public-health message about winter road safety. Explain how each form's characteristics would shape the content and meaning.

Argue whether a mockumentary is more or less effective than a regular sitcom at satirizing workplace culture.

Explain how algorithmic distribution (a characteristic of many platform forms) shapes content, with an example.

Check your understanding

Quiz

Which is a specific characteristic of a podcast?

Podcasts borrowing from radio is an example of:

A story world told across a TV series, a game and a comic, with each adding something new, is:

A platform's time limit on videos is an example of a:

Why does the 45-second rink video create a simpler meaning than the podcast?

A fictional comedy filmed like a documentary is a:

For parents and teachers

What this lesson teaches: expectation 2.1: identifying general and specific characteristics of a variety of media forms and explaining how they shape content and create meaning. Students learn about convergence, remediation, hybrid forms, platform affordances and transmedia storytelling. The rink story and "North Shore" story world are invented.

How to help at home:

Notice when one story appears in several forms (a news story on TV, in an app, on the radio). Ask your teen what each version left out.
Ask why a favourite app limits video length or uses a vertical frame.

Common difficulties:

Listing characteristics without explaining their effect. Ask "So what does that do to the content?"
Confusing transmedia with simply reposting. Each form must add something.

Facts used: Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin introduced remediation in 1999; Henry Jenkins popularized transmedia storytelling; Ben Hammersley suggested podcasting in The Guardian in 2004.