Our story was inspired by this year’s COVID-19 outbreak. Starting in the first half of this year, COVID-19 has been sweeping the world. COVID-19 can be deadly. Once infected, it quickly becomes ill, with symptoms such as cough, high fever, difficulty breathing and even death in severe cases. The epidemic and outbreak of COVID-19 have given us a lot of enlightenment from the initial discovery of the disease without good attention, to the large-scale outbreak, people’s contempt and the government’s inaction. Once the virus infects people, it can be cured, but this uncertainty is very risky. With COVID-19 on the rise, Plague Inc is back with gamers. In the game, the player’s mission is to infect everyone in the game world with the virus. Our fictional stories have to be connected to the present. This game gives us a good enlightenment, since the virus can infect people and make their body change, then think about it in reverse, if we inoculate people and vaccinate them and inject botox to make them look beautiful, the same virus is injected, but the effect is to make the body produce antibodies and the effect is positive. So what we’re going to do is in the story, all viruses are positive, you inject the virus to get what looks like a good change, but there are side effects. Of course this is just a story that doesn’t happen in real life, but Roberta Pearson and Maire Messenger Davies have come up with a simple, practical definition. For them, stories “come from a combination of characters, context and events (Freeman, 2017). So our story is set in a particular virtual age, like a superhero movie. So we set out to set specific Settings and times, characters and different events in the story.
Our group started from the text version of the script. Freeman (2017) said that all cross-media narratives are based on textual stories. We find that contemporary people, especially young people of our age, often have problems, such as being seduced by money, troubled by love life, and affected by good or bad mood. So we came up with the idea of using viruses to help young people solve these problems. In the story, our team set up a company to solve the problems of young people’s lives by selling viruses with different functions. They can buy according to their own needs. So our media audience is a group of young people around the world who are trapped by different life issues. The company in the story specializes in viruses, and we present four typical viruses in the story: the gold virus (you get rich after you use it), the pink virus (you get love after you use it), the blue virus (you get happiness after you use it), and the blood virus (you go back in time after you use it). After using the virus, people can achieve the effect they want, they will get rich, they will get love, they will feel happy, they will go back to the life they want to go back to. But it can also have side effects, just like a drug. We set up a story for each virus that tells the story of how different users’ lives changed before and after using the virus. Each story also brings different inspirations to the audience.
After finishing the creation of the text story, we began to present the story with different media narrative methods. The overall elements of the novel are systematically scattered across multiple delivery channels to create a unified and coordinated entertainment experience (Jenkins, 2009). Each medium has made its own unique contribution to the unfolding of the story. Of course, all of these are premised on the text of the play. Multiple forms of media will lead the fan base to discover as many more comprehensive stories as possible( Williams, 2018).Our text content is actually a novel, and other forms of media can also serve our novel. Just as BTS have to market their art as much as possible in order to sell their music, social media allows a new kind of cross-media interaction with their audience. BTS combines new and old media through the use of cross-media. (Sim, H. 2019) In the operation process, we found that each narrative theme in the story was suitable for different media, so we chose different platforms and media types to display each story line.
Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, we were unable to go out and make more films. So we chose the story of the Golden virus for the trailer shooting, and added a link at the end of the video to guide more viewers to watch the full text story on our official media account. But I hope that if we have time we can film the whole story, because it will tell the whole story, just like in a Marvel movie, some audiences are drawn to the original comics and novels. Cross-media communication on an effective platform will bring better communication effect (Jenkins and Shresthova, 2012). Therefore, our official video account is set up on Youtube, which will greatly increase the transmission effect of our videos. We created the story of Blue La Virus in the form of a cartoon, and published it on Reddit, which is a popular cartoon platform. At the end of the cartoon, we also attached the url of our novel. For the pink virus story, we set up a special account for the hero of the story on Instagram according to the story line, which caters to the story and publishes the love diary. The social account in the virtual story can be found from the real social media, and the establishment of this account strengthens the audience’s sense of substitution. Meanwhile, the company has also set up its official Instagram account for Virus Lab. This account is to promote the company’s products (Virus) and company philosophy, and to show the audience more information about the company. Setting up accounts and publishing content on social media will increase the sense of affinity and interaction, so that the audience can better understand our story content.
We also designed ads for the story, in the form of print ads, and designed four posters inspired by the efficacy of four viruses. The poster was also posted on Virus Lab’s social media account. But later we found that print ads should be placed in more media, even printed and posted, to achieve better communication effect, not just confined to social media. Secondly, we came up with a very good idea in the late stage to set up a website for the whole Virus Lab series. Place merchandise on the site, along with profiles of the four representative viruses and social media accounts. On the website, we show the level and lethality of the virus with stars, so that the audience can better understand. Advertising posters should have been on the site, but we didn’t, which is a shame.
Three of the four viruses have their own different vectors. Only the crossing story of the haemorrhagic virus is presented without a single alternative medium. This is because we did not find a suitable form of communication to portray the story other than print advertising. The story of the haemorrhagic virus refers to the reversal of time travel back in time, which involves time and space. Originally, in addition to the text story, each story should be filmed in video. If there is an opportunity, I still hope to use video to present the story, because the video contains pictures and sound, which can be more intuitively understood. But now, in addition to the text story, we hope that in the story of the blood virus, the audience can have their own imagination space, or leave blank, to let the audience expect whether we will have a new presentation next time. Star Wars is a good example. It was very successful, but it also adopted a cross-media narrative, because different pieces present different elements of the Star Wars story, enriching the story from their own unique perspectives. For example, in the movie, you see Han Solo and Princess Leia falling in love. In the book, you see them get married and have twins. If you dabble in multiple media areas, you’ll get a more complete picture of the story. However, it has to be admitted that due to the influence of the storyline of the haemorrhage virus, we did not fully consider in the selection of cross-media media. Now we think that in the absence of video, comic can also be used to present frame by frame, but the project is huge.
In the creation of peripheral products( merchandise), we designed 18 practical products based on the psychological needs and preferences of the audience on the premise of starting from the script text story, and the category and form of the products are determined by the audience(Seiter, 1995). There is a great contradiction between the audience of Star Wars films and the audience of peripheral products, which damages the integrity to some extent. The design of commodities affects the fan base (de Bruin-Molé, 2018). So we design the product from the perspective of the story and fans to consider together. For example, stationery items commonly used by young people, hoodie suits they like to wear, practical mobile phone cases and so on, on which we have printed virus Lab’s exclusive logo. At the same time, we also designed products that fit the story according to the story content, such as the makeup mirror mentioned in the pink love virus story. Finally, we also designed masks and viral pillows and backpacks, which both cater to the current environment and our story. These peripherals are very practical in real life. It doesn’t matter if the audience doesn’t know about our novels, or even if they use the products to stimulate consumers’ curiosity to read novels. However, in the creation, we neglected one point, that is, the aesthetics of the surrounding products. Our product appearance is not very beautiful from the perspective of aesthetics, and its design form is also very simple. More design and consideration should be given to the depiction of the hero doll. Different dolls, or dolls with viral images, should be designed according to the plot and the protagonists of different plots. The surrounding species should also be broadened beyond the 18.
In conclusion, during the whole process, we learned the difference from idea to practice and tried to modify it. In addition, we designed a logo for the virtual company and printed it on all of our media products to properly link them across multiple media platforms. The logo design also better presents the integrity and consistency of cross-media communication. The presentation of fragmented stories in different media also reflects the diversity of cross-media communication. To a certain extent, our works achieve the expected effect, but at the same time, we also reflect on the shortcomings, hoping to have the opportunity to continue to complete and improve in the future.
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Reference List
Freeman, M. (2017) ‘Characterising Transmedia Storytelling: Character-building, World-building, Authorship’. In Historicising Transmedia Storytelling: Early Twentieth-Century Transmedia Story Worlds, pp. 21-42.
Jenkins, H. (2009) ‘The Revenge of the Origami Unicorn: Seven Principles of Transmedia Storytelling (Well, Two Actually. Five More on Friday)’. Confessions of an Aca-Fan. The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins. Available at: http://henryjenkins.org/2009/12/the_revenge_of_the_origami_uni.html
Jenkins, H. (2012) ‘“Cultural acupuncture”: Fan activism and the Harry Potter Alliance’. Transformative Works and Cultures. 10. Available from:
https://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/305
Jenkins, H., & Shresthova, S. (2012). Up, up, and away! The power and potential of fan activism. Transformative Works and Cultures, 10, 1-5.
Seiter, E. (1995) ‘Toy-Based Videos for Girls: My Little Pony’ in Sold Separately: Children and Parents in Consumer Culture. Reprint edition. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press, pp. 145-171.
Sim,H．(2019) “Beyond The Scene” of Performance in K-pop: BTS’ Network of Performances On and Off Stage, Global Performance Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, 2019, https://doi.org/10.33303/gpsv3n1a5
Williams, R. (2018) ‘Fan Tourism and Pilgrimage’ in The Routledge Companion to Media
Fandom, eds. Click, M. A. & Scott, S. London: Routledge, pp. 98-106.