“It’s probably just me”: The literacies of pervasive sound narratives

Evans, Elizabeth

Abstract

The development of digital and portable media devices has led to the emergence of new and experimental forms of storytelling. The Memory Dealer (TMD) sits squarely within these developments, epitomising a form of “pervasive” drama that relies on digital technologies to layer a fictional diegesis over real world spaces. Pervasive storytelling is perhaps most popularly seen within the realm of gaming, where puzzles and tasks are hidden within real-world locations or authentic-looking websites (see McGonigal 2003, 2008, 2011; Evans, Martindale and Flintham 2014). Markus Montola (Montola 2005) describes how this involves a process of social, spatial and temporal expansion in which “the game interface is completely ambiguous: Any action could be a game action, and any sensory observation by any participant could be seen as part of the game” (Montola 2005: 1). Pervasive drama is therefore defined through a blurring of the fictional world’s boundaries and a blending of narrative forms and technologies. In the case of TMD, this involves the fictional world of Eve and the XM existing on top of and within real world, non-narrative spaces. Central to TMD’s nature as a pervasive drama is its emphasis on sound as the central storytelling mode. The use of sound, rather than video or text that require a participant’s visual attention, creates the layered form of storytelling at the heart of its “pervasiveness”. This layering, in turn, raises a particular relationship between public space, technology and narrative that participants needed to navigate in order to successfully engage with TMD’s core diegesis. This unconventional, for many participants unique, form of storytelling positions TMD as a fruitful case study for interrogating concepts of media literacy and how participants learn to make sense of new narrative experiences.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 12, 2014
• Online Publication Date: May 6, 2015
• Publication Date: May 6, 2015
• Deposit Date: Sep 11, 2017
• Journal: Journal of Sonic Studies
• Publisher: Leiden University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 9
• Public URL: http://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/147910/147911
• Publisher URL: https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/147910/147911