Transmedia narratives in light of the "Story of Stories"

Since the beginning of his pontificate, Francis has emphasized that there is no future without a rootedness in lived history. In his message for this year's World Communications Day, he further highlights the importance of the inheritance of memory and history also in communication. The theme chosen by the pope is: “'So that you can count and record in memory' (Ex 10, 2). Life makes history ”. Relationship, narration, memory and history are the main axes that make up the communication horizon of the papal message. "The human being is a narrator," says the pope. He needs to “weave” stories, “'clothe' 'himself with stories”, to care for and save his own life. The word "text" itself, in fact, comes from the Latin "textus", which precisely means tissue. To be is to weave relationships and senses. In recent years, thanks to digitization, the narration of facts and stories has been gaining important advances. Today we can speak of "transmedia narratives", that is, of a "narrative strategy that, in addition to expanding the fictional worlds in different media and platforms, also gives importance to the participation of fans in this expansion", as Carlos Scolari affirms, Communication researcher and professor at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona). For the construction of these narratives, various socio-digital media and platforms are used, which are articulated to tell the same story, but which, at the same time, is developed in several parallel stories, such as books, movies, games, stories in comics , websites, videos, blogs, digital social networks, etc. In other words, the same idea of narrative is increasingly dissociated from a certain "scriptural matrix", reinventing itself in the different languages and potentials opened up by digitization and connectivity. A sign of this is, for example, entertainment phenomena such as Star Wars, Harry Potter, Walking Dead, whose narratives are not limited to a single language in a single medium, but, precisely, "cross" media boundaries, "it they transmediate ”, unfolding in innovative ways in each medium. And, moreover, mainly, they “give space and voice” to the reader / viewer / fan so that they can participate creatively and freely in this unfolding and expansion of meanings, in the communicational circulation on the net.

In this sense, we can say that the Bible is also one of the greatest historical examples of "transmedia narrative" in all of history. First, Scripture is multimedia: it is a "book of books", but, in addition, it is also transmedia, being the same "salvation story" developed in countless stories, characters, places, historical times, contexts, etc. As Francisco says, “Sacred Scripture is a History of stories. How many experiences, peoples, people present us! ”. The Bible is not only a "collection of texts", but a great fabric of texts, a masterful intertext that, throughout history, was "transmediated" in new texts, books, mosaics, frescoes, paintings, architectural constructions, stained glass, sculptures, theaters, music, photographs, films, television and radio programs, websites, applications ... in an unimaginable circulation of senses built by countless hands of countless men and women from different times and regions. This inter and multi-textual network of the Bible, in turn, only makes sense from reading, meditation, prayer and personal and community contemplation, that is, from an interpretive experience of specific people who "rewrite" the biblical text for new times, places and human realities, expanding and making it more complex.

Autonomous narrators in a transmedia narrative context

Today, in increasingly digital cultures, this becomes even more complex. The technological means of access, production, distribution and consumption of meaning, today (sometimes in a single physical device, such as the smartphone) are within reach for the vast majority of the population. The Internet, due to its ease of access and use, and the expansion of the scope and coverage of social interactions, makes it possible for "ordinary" people to communicate a "public word", especially those who historically did not have access to industrial technological devices or communication companies. The digital environment becomes a space of autonomy, beyond the control of the governments and the media companies that historically monopolized the information production process. It is a process of autonomization, which aims, precisely, at the "mutation in the conditions of access of individual actors to media discourse, producing unprecedented transformations in the conditions of circulation", as Eliseo Verón (1935-2014) stated. , professor at the University of Buenos Aires. Autonomously, anyone can decide today the content and the interactives with whom they want to communicate, with a simple click on the screen of their cell phone. With digital communication, "he is the common man, without any corporate visibility, who gives the general communication and information environment the status of a new existential sphere (what we call media bios)", according to Muniz Sodré, professor at the School of Communication at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In the midst of this current facility of communication, in which anyone can potentially communicate with the world, Pope Francis recognizes, however, that we live in a reality marked by the "confusion of the voices and messages that surround us." Or, in the words of a 2017 Council of Europe report, a true “information disorder”, in which falsehood and harmfulness feed each other. We hardly recognize, says Francisco, the amount of "gossip and gossip", "violence and falsehood", "destructive and provocative stories that wear down and break the fragile foundations of coexistence", "non-contrasting information", "trivial discourses and falsely persuasive ”,“ hate proclamations ”that we consume at all times in our daily diet in the media. All this phenomenon of "falsification" of communication, which Francisco already addressed in the 2018 message when speaking of "false news and journalism for peace", today reaches "exponential levels", according to the pope. An example of this is the so-called “deepfake”, human images or sounds manipulated and combined by artificial intelligence systems on other existing videos or sounds, of such quality that their falsifiability becomes extremely difficult. Added to this is the “war of narratives” that marks the contemporary game of the political media. The truth of the facts, or even their veracity, no longer has any value: only "my" version of the facts matters, "my" opinion about them. “My version is better than yours! My lie is bigger than yours! A phenomenon that, for example, in Brazil, produced the increasingly strange and surreal situation, unfortunately, in which the country finds itself from a political point of view, unraveling and tearing every Furthermore, the social fabric The narration to which Francisco invites, in addition, does not resemble another type of contemporary falsification, perhaps less intense, but potentially damaging, such as the so-called storytelling. That is, the appropriation of narrative techniques by the market for advertising and marketing purposes, with heavy investments in transmedia strategies. Everything to “sell a good story”, because, in the end, “a good story sells”. And many of these stories today try to "drug us," says the Pope, to convince us that "we continually need to have, possess, consume to be happy." This "temptation of the serpent", as the book of Genesis already warns, continues to be strong and active even today: "The day you eat of it, [...] you will be like God" (cf. Genesis 3: 4) . In short, lies, falsehood, division and hatred also become transmedia, polluting the communication environment.

Texts that weave life

In this complex and challenging context, what Francisco wants to awaken are “stories that build, not destroy; stories that help rediscover the roots and strength to move forward together. ” The Pope invites to search for "constructive stories, which are binders of the social aspects and the cultural fabric". Narratives full of beauty, goodness, truth. Texts that weave relationships. Texts of life that recompose the social, cultural, political and economic “rotts and shreds” that are increasingly evident and profound. This is not an easy task, and Francisco knows that "We need patience and discernment to rediscover stories that help us not lose the thread among the many lacerations of today"; For this reason, he offers as an example the "Storyteller par excellence" - the God himself incarnated in Jesus - and the "Story of stories" - Scripture. Here, it is worth mentioning Francis himself in its entirety, in a paragraph that is the best “narrative synthesis” of the entire message: “The title of this Message is taken from the book of Exodus, a fundamental biblical account, in which God intervenes in the history of his people. In fact, when the children of Israel were enslaved they cried out to God, He heard them and remembered: «God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God noticed the children of Israel and appeared to them »(Ex 2, 24-25). Liberation from oppression springs from the memory of God, which takes place through signs and wonders. It is then that the Lord reveals to Moses the meaning of all these signs: «So that you can count [y grabar en la memoria] of your children and grandchildren […] the signs that I made in their midst. In this way you will know that I am the Lord »(Ex 10,2). The experience of the Exodus teaches us that the knowledge of God is transmitted above all by telling, from generation to generation, how He continues to make himself present. The God of life communicates by counting life. ” The Christian narrative, therefore, is born from the experience of a God who has memory, of a God who "re-strings" (a word that, as the Pope recalls, means "to carry the heart, 'write' in the heart ”). God himself remembers and writes in his heart the covenant with his people. That memory is narrated by God to his people and, thus, he frees them. "The God of life communicates by counting life", in the beautiful expression of Francis. "God has personally interwoven in our humanity, continues the pope, thus giving us a new way of weaving our stories"

The stories of the "Narrator par excellence"

Jesus also followed this same communicational style, narrating salvation from the daily life of the people. The Gospels show us that Jesus sought to communicate to people the life force of the Kingdom of God by resorting to stories, tales, narratives, "storytelling." "All this Jesus said to the crowd by means of parables, and he did not speak to them without parables" (Matthew 13:34). He did not resort to the highest standards of rhetorical stylistics, nor to the most advanced oral expression techniques of his time. He spoke the language of the people, with a simple discursive genre: parables, using as reference elements the daily life of people, such as human relationships, parties, sheep, the field, pearl, yeast, currency , the vineyard, the fig tree ... Thus, it "transmediated" the history and memory of the past to resignify the present life.

But the Gospels also point out: "The disciples came to him and said, 'Why are you speaking to them through parables?' He replied: «You have been granted to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but not them. (...) That is why I speak to them through parables: because they look and do not see, they hear and they do not hear or understand »” (Matthew 13,10-14). The parable, in trying to expose and reveal complex realities by narrating simple things, says everything to those who are willing to listen, but says nothing to those who close their ears. The parables give listeners the freedom to accept or not these stories, as well as to relate them to the personal life of each one. Only "he who has ears to hear" hears (cf. Matthew 13.9).
"Here life becomes history and then, for those who listen to it, history becomes life: that narration enters the life of those who listen to it and transforms it," says the Pope splendidly. The strength of a story, of a story, of a narration is expressed in its capacity for transformation, to generate changes in the reality of the world, literally "trans-media", that is, beyond all and any means. An exemplary story has a transforming force of reality, which is always "superior to the idea" narrated, told and related (cf. Evangelii gaudium, n. 231). And the parables of Jesus are an example of communication that questions, surprises, subverts: it is another look at reality that leads the listener to live reality differently. Thus, the Gospels not only “inform” us of Jesus, but also “perform” us in Him, make us similar to Him, as Francis affirms quoting Benedict XVI: “The Gospel is not only a communication of things that are they can know, but a communication that involves facts and changes life ”.

Life made history, history made memory, memory made life

The human being, in turn, is only a narrator because he is "in progress," says Francisco: he discovers himself and enriches himself with the "plots of his days." Every story is born from common life and unfolds in the encounter with another person. We narrate and, by narrating, we narrate ourselves. And we always narrate and narrate ourselves to someone. Umberto Eco already said: "Anything that is written, is written to say something to someone." For this reason, the pontiff invites a "human narrative, which tells us about ourselves and the beauty that we possess." The problem of contemporary communication is precisely a form of narration that is believed to be autonomous and independent, self-centered and self-sufficient, "narcissistic", in which the other person - the "reader / listener / spectator" - is not even taken into account, it is a mere passive object and a means reified to achieve certain ends (mainly economic). Or, in the worst case, the other person is narratively murdered, symbolically annihilated in the name of such ends, as in the case of hate speech. To overcome this, Francis invites us to recognize that, on the contrary, “there are no insignificant or small human stories. After God became history, all human history is, in some way, divine history. "Says the Pope. “In the history of each man, the Father returns to see the history of his Son who came down to earth. All human history has a dignity that cannot be suppressed. " According to Francisco, "By the work of the Holy Spirit, every story, even the most forgotten, even the one that seems to be written with the most twisted lines, can become inspired, can be reborn as a masterpiece, becoming an appendix to the Gospel." In other words, each one is called to “transmediate” the Gospel in his life and in his communication, expanding it in the here and now of history. Communicating in Christian style, synthesized the Pope, is to do like Mary and "narrate with life magnificent works of God". For the true Christian narrative, transmedia or not, is one that "bears witness to the Love that transforms life."

1 Brazilian journalist, doctor of Communication Sciences and collaborating professor at the Universidade do Vale do Río dos Sinos, UNISINOS. His most recent book is “Comunicar a Fé: Por quê? For what? Com quem? ” (Ed. Vozes, 2020)