Hollywood, Health & Society's Transmedia Approach

“Hollywood, Health & Society’s Transmedia Approach” Chris Dzialo, MA (Transmedia Outreach Specialist) and Kathy Le, MPH (Project Manager) Hollywood, Health & Society USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center

Background: The term ‘transmedia’ evokes Henry Jenkins’ work on storytelling and convergence. For Jenkins, ‘transmedia storytelling’ is the telling of a single story over multiple platforms; in order to get the full narrative, fans must piece together different parts of the story from the different media. Jenkins argues that this “transmedia impulse” is central to convergence culture, which is not about new media replacing old media but about the interesting and complex ways new media interact with old media.

Program background: By employing the term ‘transmedia,’ HH&S means to demarcate the ways users themselves piece together different information from different media—new and old—to become better informed about their health.

Evaluation Methods and Results: Using this framework as a springboard, the collaboration between HH&S, SAMHSA, the Child and Adolescent Bipolar Foundation, 90210 and the CW Network will be discussed as an example of transmedia, notable for its user-generated content created by viewers but curated by medical experts. Evaluation results including Webhits and podcast subscriptions will also be presented. Case studies from Hollywood, Health & Society’s other transmedia work—including collaborations on the websites for HOUSE (Fox) and Mercy (NBC)—will be discussed as well.

Conclusions: With its innovative transmedia approach, Hollywood, Health & Society seeks to leverage the strengths of one medium (primetime television) against another (the Internet) to facilitate an effective public health outreach strategy that is more than the sum of its parts.

Implications for research and/or practice: This presentation will illustrate how innovative transmedia approaches can be an effective way to increase awareness key health issues.