Transmedia Archaeology: audiences participation on the expansion of the World War II narratives (case <em>Band of Brothers</em>)

Abstract

This document aims to prove that it is possible (and perhaps necessary) address research about transmedia in terms of a logic that seeks, in the narratives and stories (past and present), significant aspects of communication processes focused on participation. It has by purpose, also, to move the research interest from the what to the when, to prove that transmediality in the story depends not only on its narrative construction, but on a whole organization of elements and resources which are a set of functions that the transmedia narrative acquired from its significance, appropriation and expansion. In this paper, a triple joint about transmedia is worked: 1) the historical dimension, 2) the narrative dimension and 3) the relationship between the reception and the participation in which is described and analyzed the fictional expansion of stories of the World War II (taking as emblem the case of Band of Brothers). It is worked, from a critical perspective, the idea and possibility of a Transmedia Archaeology that allows to expand the limits (and uses) of the Transmedia Storytelling concept, beyond the emblematic cases of the current audiovisual popular culture. With the premise that the reception has never been completely passive by the audience, is introduced the possibility of a kind of reception-participation oriented to the creation of user-generated content, which become visible in transmedia narrative universes is the past, and can be fictional or not.