One Brand, Many Trajectories: Narrative Navigation in Transmedia

Stephanie Feiereisen, Dina Rasolofoarison, Cristel Antonia Russell, Hope Jensen Schau, Eileen Fischer, Margaret C Campbell and Ashlee Humphreys

Journal of Consumer Research, 2021, vol. 48, issue 4, 651-681

Abstract: In an era of unprecedented consumer access to media and the tools to control narrative delivery, speed, and exposure to transmedia content, there is no longer the illusion of a cohesive narrative managed by a recognized singular author or unified authorial voice. Instead, consumers carve their own trajectories through brand narratives. Our multimethod inquiry of television series viewing, based on a combination of interviews, diaries, video recordings followed by member-check interviews and online forum analyses, identifies two key forces that guide narrative navigation: how consumers manage a text’s gravitational pull and its permeability to transmedia content. We find that consumers shape their own trajectories by adopting and/or moving between nine documented narrative positions. This more nuanced understanding of narrative consumption in a transmedia environment offers new insights for the study of narrative brand spaces and brand storytelling.

Keywords: narrative; narrative transportation; narrative brand; transmedia; CCT; brand storytelling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:jconrs:v:48:y:2021:i:4:p:651-681.

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