Tyler Davis
Statement of Purpose
My plan is to study Transmedia Storytelling with the ultimate goal of teaching literature in a way that
emphasizes storytelling in its most modern forms. Studying storytelling across media also opens up the
possibility of working in the creative industries. So many stories are being told as transmedia narratives,
studying it specifically would make me a valuable consultant on such projects. At RIT I have gotten the
opportunity to focus on 21st century storytelling techniques such as transmedia, adaptation, and game
narrative. I am interested in looking deeper into the movement of stories across media and authors, and
the effects of this movement on the stories and their impacts on culture.
At RIT I began by studying physics with a focus on astrophysics. Astrophysics is a study of scale. The
distances, masses, and all other measurements are beyond comprehension and must be accepted as
such. It is important to be able to accept that unfathomable scale in both the universe and in the volume
of media in circulation in the information age. Conglomerates such as Disney are pumping out stories all
belonging to one storyworld at a pace impossible to keep up with while these storyworlds become as
large and alive as our own. And like the nebula of our universe constantly constructing new stars for
astronomers to keep track of on top of the countless already dotting the heavens, writers continue to
produce stories at a rate impossible to consume.
During my study of physics, I found coding. I moved into the tech world and learned to write algorithms,
web build, and manage big data. With this I began to understand the finer details of what goes into
creation, distribution, and consumption of media. Big data affects the creation of all commercialized
media to maximize positive fan experience. Because of the work I have done in the data field I
understand both the methods of collection and organization of such data. Tech has seeped into every
facet of consumption. From books on e-readers, television and movie streaming, web hosted comics, to
music and audiobook, nearly every form of media can be accessed on a single device at a whim. My
training in tech has given me the knowledge to understand what goes into this digitization. I would like
to look further into how this affects accessibility and therefore gatekeeping, as well as how increased
ability for consumption affects how stories are perceived. A final and perhaps most important point on
tech is fan culture. Fan creation is booming and fan culture has evolved into its best and worst forms
due to the communication technology available. Wikis exist for nearly every story that has been created
and consumed highlighting characters, locations, items, and events. This accessibility of more
information on any part of a story can draw fans into a storyworld; a wiki’s network of hyperlinks
keeping them in, like a spider’s web. The fan-wiki’s affect on fandom is largely unexplored.
Most important in my education at RIT was in literature, digital humanities, and creative writing.
Because of RIT’s insistence on pushing to the future in all disciplines, I was able to learn directly about
transmedia storyworlds, media adaptation, games as literature, and collaborative creative writing in a
digital space. Studying emergent storytelling in tabletop role-playing games taught me about
collaborative creation and story structure alike. Collaborative creation was a major part of my education,
an important skill when nearly no creative industries are spaces for singularly authored works. During a
summer I spent four weeks creating a fantasy alternate reality version of the city Porto while in Porto
with classmates. There, we explored genre and collaborative worldbuilding, creating a more well
thought out and detailed world than if we had been assigned the task alone. In this world we created
characters, locations, and items that we shared, and the collection spawned vignettes and short stories.
I was pushed to act both as scholar and creator. While one course took me through the ins and outs of
Disney’s Star Wars canon as a transmedia storyworld, studying medium, multi-authorship, and target
audience’s effects on story, another course took me through creating my own characters and stories
within that same world. The view of the effects of a story being a transmedia storyworld from both
consumer and creator sides opened up both understanding and new questions. My coursework on
media adaptation and games as literature, as well as a course on the form of text, furthered my
understanding on media as a vehicle for story. I learned that in some ways media exists outside of story,
and in other ways it is inherent and inseparable.
The study of the movement from one medium to another as extension rather than adaptation is in its
infancy. Storytelling is my greatest love, whether it is a book on my nightstand, a film in my living room,
or told over dinner by word. Stories are how we learn about ourselves and the world around us, and
unlike us, will last until the last star burns out.
