Transmedia storytelling during the COVID-19 pandemic: Marvel’s WandaVision and Zack Snyder’s Justice League
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the importance of streaming within the context of commercial transmedia strategies. While cinemas have remained closed, studios have used streaming to extend audience engagement, and experiment with transmedia strategies attached to large intellectual properties. Th...
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| Format: | Journal Article |
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University of Illinois at Chicago Library
2022
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| Online Access: | https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/11784 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/88841 |
| _version_ | 1848765096667381760 |
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| author | Webster, Luke Leaver, Tama Sandry, Eleanor |
| author_facet | Webster, Luke Leaver, Tama Sandry, Eleanor |
| author_sort | Webster, Luke |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the importance of streaming within the context of commercial transmedia strategies. While cinemas have remained closed, studios have used streaming to extend audience engagement, and experiment with transmedia strategies attached to large intellectual properties. This paper seeks to determine how the pandemic affected transmedia and a shift to streaming. Drawing from key scholarly transmedia theory, and industry insights into transmedia best practice, this paper analyses the release of Marvel’s WandaVision and Zack Snyder’s Justice League and maps them against the larger transmedia strategies being used by Disney and Warner Bros. to create the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and DC Extended Universe (DCEU), respectively. This research demonstrates that streaming has become the critical component of commercial transmedia. Marvel are using streaming to enhance the integrity of one consistent storyworld. DC are placing greater priority on character than storyworld and using streaming to create a multiverse experience with divergent authorial voices. These varied styles of transmedia storytelling can be attributed to the organisational structures of each parent company, as well as the comic book source material. The pandemic created an opportunity to observe the amplified audience reactions to each approach. As streaming platforms occupy a greater role in transmedia scholarship, these findings will assist in the development of longitudinal research that explores the transformative impact of streaming on commercial transmedia entertainment. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T11:29:49Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-88841 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T11:29:49Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publisher | University of Illinois at Chicago Library |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-888412022-07-20T07:07:08Z Transmedia storytelling during the COVID-19 pandemic: Marvel’s WandaVision and Zack Snyder’s Justice League Webster, Luke Leaver, Tama Sandry, Eleanor 4701 - Communication and media studies 2001 - Communication and Media Studies The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the importance of streaming within the context of commercial transmedia strategies. While cinemas have remained closed, studios have used streaming to extend audience engagement, and experiment with transmedia strategies attached to large intellectual properties. This paper seeks to determine how the pandemic affected transmedia and a shift to streaming. Drawing from key scholarly transmedia theory, and industry insights into transmedia best practice, this paper analyses the release of Marvel’s WandaVision and Zack Snyder’s Justice League and maps them against the larger transmedia strategies being used by Disney and Warner Bros. to create the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and DC Extended Universe (DCEU), respectively. This research demonstrates that streaming has become the critical component of commercial transmedia. Marvel are using streaming to enhance the integrity of one consistent storyworld. DC are placing greater priority on character than storyworld and using streaming to create a multiverse experience with divergent authorial voices. These varied styles of transmedia storytelling can be attributed to the organisational structures of each parent company, as well as the comic book source material. The pandemic created an opportunity to observe the amplified audience reactions to each approach. As streaming platforms occupy a greater role in transmedia scholarship, these findings will assist in the development of longitudinal research that explores the transformative impact of streaming on commercial transmedia entertainment. 2022 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/88841 10.5210/fm.v27i7.11784 https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/11784 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ University of Illinois at Chicago Library fulltext |
| spellingShingle | 4701 - Communication and media studies 2001 - Communication and Media Studies Webster, Luke Leaver, Tama Sandry, Eleanor Transmedia storytelling during the COVID-19 pandemic: Marvel’s WandaVision and Zack Snyder’s Justice League |
| title | Transmedia storytelling during the COVID-19 pandemic: Marvel’s WandaVision and Zack Snyder’s Justice League |
| title_full | Transmedia storytelling during the COVID-19 pandemic: Marvel’s WandaVision and Zack Snyder’s Justice League |
| title_fullStr | Transmedia storytelling during the COVID-19 pandemic: Marvel’s WandaVision and Zack Snyder’s Justice League |
| title_full_unstemmed | Transmedia storytelling during the COVID-19 pandemic: Marvel’s WandaVision and Zack Snyder’s Justice League |
| title_short | Transmedia storytelling during the COVID-19 pandemic: Marvel’s WandaVision and Zack Snyder’s Justice League |
| title_sort | transmedia storytelling during the covid-19 pandemic: marvel’s wandavision and zack snyder’s justice league |
| topic | 4701 - Communication and media studies 2001 - Communication and Media Studies |
| url | https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/11784 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/88841 |