Understanding Transmedia Storytelling in the Digital Age: A Deeper Look into Rooster Teeth's RWBY Textual Adaptations

This thesis explores the role of transmedia storytelling in the context of digital media, with a particular focus on Rooster Teeth's RWBY animated series and its printed adaptations. Rooster Teeth, a pioneer in online content creation, gained widespread recognition with its machinima series Red vs. Blue and later expanded into original animation with RWBY. RWBY serves as a case study that offers a perceptive look at the application of transmedia storytelling, a narrative technique that disperses tale elements over several platforms to engage audiences in more meaningful and participatory ways. The success of RWBY in using a variety of media formats, such as manga, comics, novels, and animation, to broaden its story universe and establish a connection with viewers throughout the world – especially in Japan – is critically examined in this thesis. Although RWBY's anime-style graphics and partnerships with Japanese manga publishers helped it gain significant success in Japan, its...Show moreThis thesis explores the role of transmedia storytelling in the context of digital media, with a particular focus on Rooster Teeth's RWBY animated series and its printed adaptations. Rooster Teeth, a pioneer in online content creation, gained widespread recognition with its machinima series Red vs. Blue and later expanded into original animation with RWBY. RWBY serves as a case study that offers a perceptive look at the application of transmedia storytelling, a narrative technique that disperses tale elements over several platforms to engage audiences in more meaningful and participatory ways. The success of RWBY in using a variety of media formats, such as manga, comics, novels, and animation, to broaden its story universe and establish a connection with viewers throughout the world – especially in Japan – is critically examined in this thesis. Although RWBY's anime-style graphics and partnerships with Japanese manga publishers helped it gain significant success in Japan, its printed adaptations – created in association with VIZ Media and DC Comics – were beset by a number of difficulties. These problems highlight crucial questions about the adaption of animated shows into printed formats, notably with preserving narrative coherence and audience engagement across platforms. The thesis explores the idea of filtering, framing and amplification in the digital age, as presented in The Content Machine by Michael Bhaskar. Using Bhaskar's framework Rooster Teeth's RWBY franchise management is examined. Rooster Teeth exhibits an attempt to create value by amplifying information across multiple mediums through their creative use of digital channels for content distribution, first through web series and then through partnerships with DC Comics and Japanese manga publishers. This study contends that RWBY's print adaptations, much as they preserved (retained) viewer engagement, fell short of realizing the full potential of transmedia storytelling since they essentially repeated the animation series' stories without broadening the narrative universe. The thesis concludes by discussing the wider ramifications of transmedia storytelling in the digital era and how fan involvement, global audience dynamics, and changing publishing environments may affect these stories in the future. Rooster Teeth and their show RWBY highlights the benefits and challenges of transmedia storytelling as digital media continues to develop, underscoring the necessity of meticulous coordination across platforms to produce a genuinely immersive and long-lasting narrative experience.Show less

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Understanding Transmedia Storytelling in the Digital Age: A Deeper Look into Rooster Teeth's RWBY Textual Adaptations