Transmedia Critical| Advertising the Yellow Brick Road: Historicizing the Industrial Emergence of Transmedia Storytelling

Authors

  • Matthew Freeman University of Nottingham

Keywords:

Transmedia, Mass Culture, Advertising, Narrative, Cross-Promotion, Land of Oz

Abstract

 Tracing the industrial emergence of transmedia storytelling—typically branded a product of contemporary media convergence—this article provides a historicized intervention on the configuration of transmedia storytelling in U.S. culture at the turn of the 20th century. I draw on L. Frank Baum’s Land of Oz storyworld and its multiple texts and promotional tie-ins as a case study for revealing how the industrial rise of transmedia storytelling can be recontextualized as a cultural product of early-20th-century modern advertising. The article maps the ways in which Baum engineered Oz stories transmedially at this time according to broader slippages between content and promotion across platforms.

Author Biography

Matthew Freeman, University of Nottingham

PhD Candidate

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Published

2014-08-14

Issue

Vol. 8 (2014)

Section

Special Sections

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