ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to provide a theoretical contribution to contextual understandings of narrative ecosystems. It unravels some of the industrial practices, conceptions, uses, and cultural understandings of the contemporary transmedia phenomenon. The chapter details the overarching similarities and differences between transmediality as an overarching critical approach and the more specific narrative ecosystem perspective. It explores the strengths and weaknesses of transmediality in the context of analyzing vast serial narratives. The chapter delves into the conceptual nuances that underpin transmediality as a system, highlighting its value in analyzing the production, distribution, and consumption of vast narrative structures. It establishes the specificities of the narrative ecosystem approach, which keeps together a wide range of heterogeneous factors – accounting for evolutions from text to context. The chapter highlights the importance of understanding the vastness of transmediality in terms of an expansive form of intertextuality.
