Pulseras Rojas’S Official Facebook Page (Antena 3, Spain) Transmedialidad: Series De ficción Y Redes Sociales
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
TUR-VIÑES, V. y RODRÍGUEZ F., R. Engagement, fiction series and social networks. CUADERNOS.INFO Nº 34 ISSN 0719-3661 Versión electrónica: ISSN 0719-367x http://www.cuadernos.info doi: 10.7764/cdi.34.549 Engagement: fiction series and social networks. The case of Pulseras Rojas’s official Facebook page (Antena 3, Spain) Transmedialidad: series de ficción y redes sociales. El caso de Pulseras Rojas en el grupo oficial de Facebook (Antena 3. España) VICTORIA TUR-VIÑES, Universidad de Alicante, Alicante, España ([email protected]) RAÚL RODRÍGUEZ FERRÁNDIZ, Universidad de Alicante, Alicante, España ([email protected]) ABSTRACT RESUMEN We analyzed the Facebook group page of a televi- Analizamos el Facebook de la teleserie Pulseras sion series broadcasted in Spain, Pulseras Rojas. Rojas emitida en España por Antena 3, en tanto The social network is a transmedia platform and a recurso transmedia y fuente de oportunidades para resource of opportunities to stimulate viewer engage- estimular el engagement del espectador. Estudiamos ment. Our focus is traffic on Facebook derived from el tráfico generado durante la emisión de la segunda the second season, broadcasted by Antena 3 Spanish temporada, entre julio y agosto de 2013. Siguiendo la network between July and August 2013. Following propuesta de Askwith (2007), se pueden identificar the proposal of Askwith (2007), we consider seven siete modalidades de touchpoints, es decir, puntos de touchpoints: Expanded access, repackaged content, contacto con la narración, adicionales a la propia ancillary content, branded products, related activi- emisión televisiva: acceso expandido, contenido ties, social interaction and interactivity. We studied adaptado, contenido expandido, productos de Facebook entries in order to classify the user’s type of marca, actividades relacionadas, interacción social involvement, calibrate the corporate response to user e interactividad. El estudio exploratorio se basa en demands and evaluate opportunities of both business el análisis del contenido del grupo de la serie en and participatory culture stimulated by the social Facebook e identifica las modalidades de touchpoints network. Facebook is revealed as a powerful tool to y sus resultados. Facebook se revela como un potente engage the viewer, although the network commu- instrumento para involucrar al espectador, aunque nication strategy has an incipient and undeveloped la estrategia comunicativa de la cadena de televisión management that fails to take full advantage of the presenta una gestión incipiente, poco evolucionada, interactive, two-way nature of the social network. que desaprovecha el carácter interactivo y bidireccional de la red social. Keywords: TV series, Pulseras Rojas, Facebook, engagement, Palabras clave: Televisión; series de ficción, Pulseras Askwith, touchpoints, transmedia storytelling, crossmedia. Rojas, Facebook, engagement (compromiso), Askwith, transmedia storytelling (narración transmediática), crossmedia. •How to cite this article: Tur-Viñes,CUADERNOS.INFO V. y Rodríguez Nº Ferrándiz,34 / JUNE 2014 R. (2014). / ISSN 0719-3661Transmedialidad: / E-VERSIÓN: series WWW.CUADERNOS.INFO de ficción y redes sociales. / ISSN 0719-367XEl caso de Pul- seras Rojas en el grupo oficial de Facebook (Antena 3. España). Cuadernos.info, 34, 115-131. doi: 10.7764/cdi.34.549 115 TUR-VIÑES, V. y RODRÍGUEZ F., R. Engagement, fiction series and social networks. INTRODUCTION Technology and the development of the Internet viding guides for the transmedia creator (Giovagnoli, determine the communicative style adopted by the 2011; Bernardo, 2011; Phillips, 2012) and even by audiovisual contents. Producers and broadcasters getting the approval of the industry in 2010, when promote engagement to avoid audience fragmen- the Producers Guild of America added the trans- tation, create communities and stimulate fans. An media producer category to the credits list of Hol- audiovisual product’s follow-up has become a sophis- lywood films. ticated experience. Changes in its design, production The concept of transmedia storytelling is attributed and dissemination are demanding communication to Henry Jenkins (2003), although it was Marsha professionals who are familiar with new narrative Kinder (1991) who introduced the term in commu- forms, and are capable of understanding, managing nication studies, as recognized by Jenkins (2011). and exploiting the potential of the communicative Indeed, in 1991, Kinder employed the term trans- spaces enabled by technology in the digital envi- media intertextuality to refer to relations between ronment. The new communicative spaces offer con- television, film, video games and toys, as “compatible nection and involvement opportunities for viewers members of the same ever-expanding supersystem who are hungry for interaction, conversation, and of mass entertainment” (p. 40). Since then, Kinder proposals. Fiction series are an attractive genre to already emphasized the commercial aspect of the these phenomena, since the serial structure allows strategy and warned about the dangers of assum- the design of transmedia strategies to disseminate ing it in purely textual (or intertextual) terms, dis- contents trough other media, before or after the regarding the promotional cross-media dimension broadcast of the episode. between these texts. The overall aim of this study1 is to investigate the use But an intertextual network, although necessary made by the Spanish network Antena 3 of the social condition, is not enough to speak of transmedia sto- network Facebook as part of the communication strat- rytelling: Jenkins insisted that, ideally, every medium egy of the fiction series Pulseras Rojas. This is an explor- makes a unique, distinctive and valuable contribution atory study that seeks to identify the types of official to the construction of the story; i.e., is neither a quo- contents presented in the official group page, managed tation or allusion, nor an adaptation, transposition by the national network Antena 3, which broadcast the or inter-semiotic translation, but something more Spanish-dubbed version of the original series. First, we complex (Jenkins, 2007, 2008; Scolari, 2008). Each analyze the communication strategy and the adaptation medium conveys a text that offers something new, of the official contents of the series to Facebook’s char- narratively speaking; the narrative is enriched and acteristics, trying to identify the existence of exclusive problematized by this contribution and the inter- content, possible official responses to audience com- textual universe it helps to build becomes denser ments and the strategic nature of the planning of new and complex: posts. In addition, we decided to categorize the types In the ideal form of transmedia, each medium does what it of contents that motivated the posts based on Askwith’s does best — so that a story might be introduced in a film, (2007) touchpoint categories (which are potential gen- expanded through television, novels, and comics, and its erators of engagement), and to examine the answers world might be explored and experienced through game provoked in the audience. play. Each franchise entry needs to be self-contained enou- Before we continue, it is necessary to define some gh to enable autonomous consumption. That is, you don’t key concepts for the study we propose. need to have seen the film to enjoy the game and vice-ver- sa (Jenkins, 2003, p.3). TRANSMEDIA AND CROSSMEDIA NARRATIVE The term transmedia has evolved from such terms Transmedia expansion depends, in the era of as hypertextuality (Landow, 1995), multimedia and media convergence, on corporate impulse, partici- hypermedia (Moreno, 2002), post-hypertextuality patory culture and fans activity, on which Jenkins (Scolari, 2008), cross-media, user generated content, had reflected so much (1992, 2006b). In other words, cross-platform and media hybrids. Transmediality transmedia narratives are creations inside and out- seems to be succeeding in imposing itself, by pro- side the canon, in the fandom or, as Jenkins (2010) CUADERNOS.INFO Nº 34 / JUNE 2014 / ISSN 0719-3661 / E-VERSIÓN: WWW.CUADERNOS.INFO / ISSN 0719-367X 116 TUR-VIÑES, V. y RODRÍGUEZ F., R. Engagement, fiction series and social networks. says, every story aspires to become a re-elaboration other contents of spontaneous generation. “Conver- “shaped top down by decisions made in corporate gence represents a cultural shift as consumers are boardrooms and bottom up by decisions made in encouraged to seek out new information and make teenagers’ bedrooms” (p. 948). connections among dispersed media content” (Jen- The transmedia story is thus built by the sum of sto- kins, 2006a, p. 12). ries appearing in different media spaces, either simul- For the communication manager, this panorama taneously or successively, breaking the usual linearity. is a double challenge, as they have to obtain in-depth But it does not only have an expansive character, as knowledge about the possibilities of each medium it seems to be deduced from Jenkins ‘proposal. It can and create or adapt the communication strategies to also be a compressed narrative, as stated by Scolari, these possibilities: Jiménez and Guerrero (2012), and become a trailer, At the same time, the change in the way of producing con- compilation or synthesis, with a more or less explicit tents implies: developing them in different narrative lan- promotional purpose. It can also be an auteur narra- guages according to the available formats (text, audio, vi- tive, not limited to corporate