Cirrus@Austlit

'In 2012, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries aired as a web series adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. The series of YouTube videos was supplemented by various social media platforms, including Twitter, Tumblr and Google+, and was awarded an Emmy for Best Original Interactive Program in 2013. Since then, there has been a swift rise in classic novels adapted through social media platforms online. These webseries have made use of multi-platform storytelling strategies with varying degrees of success. As a relatively new method of storytelling, transmedia narratives have yet to invite the equivalent academic scrutiny of traditional media like novels, television shows and films. Creative producers employ strategies that create an illusion of reality, or a Cartesian dream, which facilitates an ‘engagement aesthetic’ and allows viewers to immerse themselves in the narrative. Viewers approach characters and situations on the internet as if they are ‘real’ because, in the online space, ‘reality’ is a construction of the user.' (Publication abstract)