Doctor Who and Harry Potter: A Transmedia Comparison

Introduction

Within the 21st century, the digitalization of the media has started to shape and affect all areas of the media industries known today. As the godfather of Transmedia, Henry Jenkins states, that through digitalization the media is going through a transition where an old media system is dying, while a new media system is being born. This new media system has become more mobile, interactive, and easier to use (Bolin, G. 2007). By becoming so interactive and mobile, media has gone through the process of convergence, a process whereby there is a blurring of the boundaries of different media technologies (Bolin, G. 2007). Transmedia storytelling has emerged in response to this media convergence. According to Transmedia writer Andrea Philips, Transmedia storytelling is defined as “The art of telling a single story through multiple platforms at the same time” (Philips, 2012). Implying that the audience has the ability, through multiple platforms, to hunt down and gather different bits and pieces of the story available to them online or offline. (Perryman, N. 2008). As a result, the audience experiences a deeper connection to their entertainment than ever before. Two real-life franchises that fully embody the core of Transmedia storytelling in this essay, Doctor Who a television series, and Harry Potter a movie series, will be used in order to justify the importance of Transmedia storytelling.

Doctor Who

Transmedia storytelling has been used within the very popular series Doctor Who as a strategy in order to stimulate success. Doctor Who has had a long tradition of using multimedia storytelling such as comic strips, spin-off books, and stories about the future adventures of the Doctor, which all started in 1964 (Perryman, N. 2008). These comics and spin-off stories provided readers at the time the ability to relive what they had seen on television and usually, these paperbacks had a greater depth, even providing extra scenes which would allow the fans to get gather even more information about the episodes they had watched. These spin-offs and comics from 1964 were a prime example of what Neil Young calls: ‘additive comprehension. Mentioned in Luke. K. Freemans, ‘The Art of World Building’ article, Neil Young, The Matrix game designer defines Additive comprehension as the ability to have more interpreting possibilities and new pieces of narrative that build an idea of these fictional franchises (Freeman, L. 2008, p.1)

Another way that the franchise used Transmedia storytelling is through the concept that Henry Jenkins defined as drillability (Source). Drillability is when a story captures the fan's imagination and most importantly their interests enough in order to encourage them to start a deeper investigation into the details (source: transmediajournalism.org/contexts/principles-of-transmedia/). Within the Doctor Who series, there was a deliberate attempt to have the audience engage with the storyline by seeing if through the use of media, the audience was able to unlock a mystery that existed at the core of the story. With each episode unfolding, there was a conscious decision made to continuously repeat the code word: “Bad Wolf”. In order to keep the mystery, the code word would present itself in the episodes in subtle ways. An example shown in the episode ‘Fathers Day’ (14 May 2005), the code work was shown as graffiti on a poster. (Perryman, N. 2008 p.6).

Through this act of drillability, it became apparent that the fans started to speculate about the meaning behind the code word. Fans did this through what Carlson Scolarli called: the creation of user-generated content platforms, such as blogs, wikis, etc. Considered an open-source where fans are able to create their own interpretations of the story (Scolarli, C. 2009). These speculations led to unofficial blogs like ‘Scott’s Place’ or ‘Outpost Gallifrey’ to start discussing the meaning behind its repeated appearance and establish new theories about its importance in the storyline (Perryman, N. 2008). Simply, through the Transmedia strategy of drillability, the community expanded by over 18,000 users (Perryman, N. 2008).

Having a huge impact on the further successes of the Doctor Who series. The ‘Bad Wolf’ meme was so immensely circulated that it also started being incorporated within spin-off novels. This links to another concept discussed by Henry Jenkins called spreadability. Spreadability is when stories are spread around by the continuous discussion and interaction of fans and their active engagement with the material and spread of ideas on social networking sites (source). By having fans create spin-off novels about what the potential code word ‘Bad Wolf’ could mean and its importance in the storyline, it allows for the spread of these ideas across different media platforms. Whether the code word ‘Bad Wolf’ was intentionally created by the producers of Doctor Who or to merely see how the audience reacts to the mystery, all of the Transmedia strategies explained above show its major impact on the interactivity between the show and the audience as well as the engagement and popularity of the show.

Harry Potter

The second real-life franchise is the successful Harry Potter movie series. Harry Potter is known for its eight popular movies, items of merchandise, and many Potter studios and US theme parks where fans go to from around the globe (Lubbes, D. 2015). Although Harry Potter is a successful product of media convergence, the franchise heavily realizes on Transmedia storytelling for its continued success.

Through Transmedia storytelling, the fantasy world of Harry Potter becomes reachable to fans of the real world. This links to a Transmedia storytelling technique Henry Jenkins calls, extractability. Extractability is when a fan is able to take aspects of a story with them into the spaces of the fan's everyday life (source). The first example of extractability is that Harry Potter fans are able to experience Butterbeer popular wizarding drink in their daily lives at Harry Potter restaurants around the globe. The second example is how fans are able to purchase and carry around, one of the main character’s wands and use it for entertainment purposes in their daily lives. Lastly, Quidditch a fictional game played within the books of Harry Potter has since 2007 become an official sport, where fans are able to play the game of Quidditch with other friends as well as use broomsticks are their way to travel up and down the field. All of these examples show the major impact that the story of Harry Potter has had on the lives of these fans and the ability for these fans to be able to use all of these small details from Harry Potter and incorporate them into their daily lives.

Another example of the way Transmedia storytelling is used is through the heavily used online platform: Pottermore. Pottermore is a website where Harry Potter fans are able to interact with one another about Harry Potter. On the website itself fans commonly explore the unknown of the franchise, and try to uncover mysteries within the story as a community (Lubbes, D. 2015). Pottermore is the ideal example of what Jason Mittel, the writer of the article “To Spread or to Drill?”, defines as ‘forensic fandom’. Rowling as an author uses forensic fandom as a way to encourage her fans to dive deeper in the Harry Potter story. This in turn creates engagement between herself and her readers (Mittel, J. 2009).

Not only have websites been an active part of the Harry Potter world, but also the engagement between fans and J.K. Rowling herself on the medium of Twitter. Twitter as Lev Manovich defines it, is ‘The Language of New Media’. The ‘Language of New Media’, implies through digitalization we all speak the same language (Lubbes, D. 2015). By having active participants on mediums like Twitter, there is an immediate shift and blurring between the power relations of the author and of the fan. An example of ‘The Language of New Media’ is that fans actively are speaking up about potential doubts they may have about the sexual nature of Dumbledore (Lubbes, D. 2015). Through Twitter Rowling has the ability to communicate and clarify with her fans about the issue. Hence, through platforms such as Twitter, there is a larger interactivity between fans and authors.

Both real-life franchises Doctor Who and Harry Potter incorporate Henry Jenkins's concept of continuity. Continuity is when a story unfolds in separate lines and across diverse media but still maintains the coherence and plausibility of the story (source). Within Harry Potter continuity is used as each story that is presented has a coherence of characters involved (Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Voldemort), and also the realm itself does not change where the characters live in. All these aspects ensure that the story remains the same and stays plausible. In Doctor Who, continuity is seen in a different light. Within Doctor Who, the overall concept of the Doctor is what stays coherent throughout each season, although not physically having the same Doctor for each season the embodiment of the Doctor is how the story stays coherent and through the continuous use of certain props within the series such as the ‘TARDIS’, also known as the fictional time machine and spacecraft that appears repeated in every episode of the television show. Implying that the story unfolds in separate lines but still remains plausible and continuous.

However, although both of these franchises use continuity, which series presents this coherent story/information in a way that keeps the fans fully engaged? By critically analyzing both franchises and their thought-out ways in using continuity, Doctor Who shows far more precision in ensuring fans stay engaged. By leaving an open ending to who the doctor will become, it leaves fans in constant anticipation for what is to come. By having fans wait, the cycle begins again where fans come together to create their own theories about what is to come. However, something to take into consideration is that Doctor Who changes the main character every couple of seasons, it may also be a larger risk that the franchise is taking. This is because if fans are not interested in or do not like the new character that the Doctor embodies, it may lead to uninterested fans.

Conclusion

All in all, all of the examples above show how both Doctor Who and Harry Potter have become very successful through the use of Transmedia Storytelling. It further justifies that without Transmedia storytelling in this day and age full of digitalization, companies are not able to stand out or fully interact to their audience. By being interactive, and fully engaged with working together with fans Transmedia storytelling opens up possibilities for companies to grow and stay successful.