Transmedia Literacy and Identity Development Jay Lemke University

Transmedia Literacy and Identity Development Jay Lemke University of Michigan jaylemke@umich. edu

Literacy Today • Literacy today is a system of cultural and technological practices that enable us to participate for our own purposes in communities that produce, interpret, and mobilize multiple media.

Literacy & Identity • Identities are mobilizable histories, affiliations, and identifications that orient us within networks of social relations • A significant part of our identity resources and commitments arise from engagement with popular culture media through multimedia and transmedia literacy practices

Media and Markets • Popular culture media offer and project not just possible identities, but systems of related identities • Consumer markets are increasingly produced and defined through such systems of differentiated and hierarchically valued identities • Identity Markets [cf. Bourdieu]

Transmedia Literacy • • • Making meaning across media/genres Transmedia franchises (Henry Jenkins) Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars Books, films, games, websites, magazines, toys, merchandise, etc.

Transmedia Franchises • • • Harry Potter Lord of the Rings Star Wars, Star Trek The Matrix Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Mario Brothers Final Fantasy America’s Army The Iraq War ? George Bush ?

Serious Transmedia: America´s Army

Transmedia Identities • • • Characters: Harry, Bush Places: Hogwarts, Baghdad Periods: The 60 s, Nazi Germany Events: The Iraq War Brands: Nike, Coca-cola, Mc. Donald’s

Transmedial Harry

The Potter Complex • • 7 + 2 JK Rowling books 4 feature films 5+ video and computer games Rowling, publishers, movie and game studios websites • Independent fan websites (fiction, art, videos) • Merchandise (wands, candy, clothing, etc. ) • Music !

Embodying Harry

Identity Markets • The marketing of identities: identifications with clothes, music, characters, values • Differentiation & Hierarchization of identities: identity markets • Kid/teen/collegiate/30 s/40 s/50 s/senior • Career woman /working mother/ • Middle-class masculine /macho/gay male • Clothes, drinks, cars, media, politics

Traversals & Transmedia • Experiential meanings made along life traversals across activities, settings, media • Channel-surfing, web-surfing, making our moments add up to our days and lives • Transmedia as marketing strategies to track our traversals: ubiquitous brands, products • TV, billboards, websites, laptops, PDAs, mobiles, i. Phones, gameboys

A New Hope • Beyond the Franchise: Fan fiction, fan art, fan music videos, fan forums, fan websites • Consumer-producers: collateral media and fan communities re-appropriate the franchise media • 250, 000 Harry Potter fan fictions • Exploring possible identity counter-markets

Harry / Ron

Implications for Learning? • Learning takes place as a member of multiple communities • Learning occurs across time, place, and media -- How? • Learning depends critically on identity and affective feelings • Identities are learned and are sites of contestation

Implications for Education • Curricula and schools must not ignore popular culture media • Teaching must focus on identifications and identities, opening up possibilities • Schools alone cannot provide education for life • Radically new models of educational systems are needed

Implications for Research • Research on learning must become more longitudinal • We need to document learning processes across sites, events, media, genres, and institutions • Research on learning must focus more on affective elements • Research on education needs to look beyond learning in schools alone