Abstract:
As digital media increases in popularity and broadcast audiences decline, it is crucial that
television networks find ways to engage their users. Public media stations can determine what
their audiences want and enrich storytelling through design thinking to create a transmedia
experience. Design thinking allows content creators to determine users’ preferred platforms and
storytelling methods within a multi-platform, transmedia landscape. WFYI, a public media
station in Indianapolis, produced a documentary about the socialist labor leader Eugene Debs.
While creating the hour long program, an organization-wide committee and the station’s young
professionals group created an eleven part cross-platform media campaign to engage different
audiences around the storyworld of The Revolutionist: Eugene V. Debs . While the individual
pieces were designed by users and content creators, a more interconnected transmedia design
following the story from one platform to another may have enhanced the experience.
Nevertheless, this approach of “meeting audiences where they already are” can expand the story
world from what can be told in a single broadcast hour to multiple experiences, more in-depth
content, and a broader range of users.
Keywords: Transmedia, public media, design thinking, multimedia, cross-platform,
digital storytelling, television, radio, social media, documentary, Eugene Debs, collaboration
