Drew Davidson et al. 2010
This text is an introduction to the future of mass media and mass communications – cross-media communications. Cross-media is explained through the presentation and analysis of contemporary examples and project-based tutorials in cross-media development. The text introduces fundamental terms and concepts, and provides a solid overview of cross-media communications, one that builds from a general introduction to a specific examination of media and genres to a discussion of the concepts involved in designing and developing cross-media communications.
CMC Media Files show how cross-media can be applied, with art, music and illustrations that complement the text. Chapters have overviews and problem-based/project-based activities to encourage active engagement with the readings. Throughout the text there are specific examples, case studies, foundations, and interviews with experts in the field to better illustrate the nature of cross-media.
Cross-media Communications are integrated, interactive experiences that occur across multiple media, with multiple authors and have multiple styles. The audience becomes an active part in a cross-media experience. The overarching goal is to provide an overview of cross-media design and development. It is meant to be interdisciplinary and introductory in concept and implementation.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License
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NOTE: For those looking for the DVD-ROM, Lulu.com is going to no longer offer DVD sales. This fact, along with the thoughtful comments below, has inspired the free download of the CMC Media Files.
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A comprehensive guide for anyone who wants to work or play in the emerging terrain created by the interlocking orbits of contemporary media.
Frank Lantz
Creative Director and Co-Founder, area/code
Director, New York University Game Center
Davidson et al have managed to wrangle the diverse and far reaching elements that comprise Cross-media Communications into a cohesive and highly approachable text. This text provides the student and educators with the tools and exercises to best introduce the topic, and lays a solid foundation for whatever the genre evolves into in the future.
Mk Haley
CMU ETC Associate Executive Producer and Faculty
Disney Research Labs, Pittsburgh
For classroom or casual interest, here is a superb introduction to the cross-media revolution of the 21st Century; chock-full of history, definitions, exercises and insights, including many from those leading the charge against the crumbling barricades of the old and the monolithic. Viva la Revolucion!
Lee Sheldon
Assistant Professor, Department of Telecommunications
Indiana University
This book is an invaluable guide about the emerging art and science of cross media communication. Use this book as the foundation for your own journey into creating significant new experiences. I intend to have everyone in my organization read this book to ground them on the new rules and new opportunities for communication in the next decade.
Mickey McManus
President, CEO and Principal
MAYA Design
Thu, 04/21/2011 - 23:29
THE GOOD:
Content in the book is quite accessible and easily understandable by anyone new to the cross-media concept. It is an attractive combination: A list of renowed "contributors" and useful appendix contents.
The whole book in plain text is available online for free at the Carnegie Mellon Research Showcase.
THE BAD:
If you go for the Kindle version, you'll pay a small amount. Surprisingly, it is actually the same as the free version online from the Carnegie Mellon Research Showcase (plain text, no hyperlinks, no figures nor additional features available).
Printed version is different from the one at the "look inside" mode (the Taxonomy of Entertainment Technologies from the ETC figure -preface, page x- appears in color, while in the printed version everything in black and white). No proofreading work reflects in continuous typographical errors along the book.
Image quality in printed edition is very poor (like a printed gif image). Original figures were designed to be in color, so being in a black and white printed version, there is an extremely wide range of gray levels which are nearly impossible to distinguish as color codes. Pages 56 and 57 are left in blank without reason.
THE UGLY:
Author and ETC Press state that while there is a separate Cross-media DVD ROM available, it is not necessary to follow the exercises suggested along the book. Unfortunately, the truth is that the book is actually based on the DVD ROM contents. If this wasn't enough, every black and white figure in the printed version reads: "(full color version on the DVD ROM)", so the "optional" status of the DVD ROM is very questionable.
CONCLUSION:
In theory this book is a good starting point to understand the basics behind the cross-media communications concept. However, some of the contributors texts feel quite low in "substance" compared to their regular writings and interviews in other spaces. It has a bit of the "Aldrich Factor" in his book "Learning Online with Games, Simulations, and Virtual Worlds" where contents remain quite low to what the title and "authorities" recommendations at the front and back covers say it should be.
Ironically, in practice "Cross-Media communications: an introduction th the art of creating integrated media experiences" is an awful example of a cross-media implementation. Neither printed, nor Kindle or DVD ROM versions are designed to take profit of their real potential or even to make it useful.
LAST UPDATE (May 2011)
Browsing in Amazon recently, it seems that this titlte is being re-published by Thomson / Delmar Learning with an approx. retail price of USD $64.95. Expected publishing date was announced March 2011, but no information about the book release date is currently available (at least in Amazon). On "product details", it seems to have about a hundred more pages than the edition I have now (I'm not sure if this means more content).
If this new release means a quality updated (and revised) version of the edition I have now (which, for the suggested retail, it should be a "must"), great news for you all. As for me, It would mean an abuse in what seems has been the selling of a careless "draft version", in pieces (the "printed version" and the separated "DVD ROM"), before a decent publishing release.
Not a good experience.
I hope author and editor get this comments.
Fri, 04/22/2011 - 04:29
hi enremx - thanks for the thoughtful comment and insightful critique. We partner with Lulu to publish all our titles, and were hoping they would be able to create books with DVD sleeves so we could sell it all together. Unfortunately, this has yet to happen, so we have to awkward separate book and DVD. So, we tried to make the best of the situation, but obviously it's not ideal. Also, we offer all our titles for digital download for free, but the Amazon store requires a price from smaller publishers (they currently only allow free downloads from select larger publishers). So, not to offer excuses, but we are working with systems of publishing that are advancing as we speak, so hopefully we can improve the experience. And I should note that there won't be republished version with Thomson/Delmar (not sure why that's there, but I'll look into it). All that said, we continue to work to improve the overall experience. Thanks, Drew
Fri, 04/22/2011 - 10:35
Dear Dr. Davidson,
Thank you very much for your openness while talking about your work.
Why not take profit of this cross-media principle with alternate solutions like making your DVD contents available online? Some examples with free full contents parallel to commercial printed versions are: Lych and Horton's "Web Style Guide" @ http://webstyleguide.com/index.html or Pratten's book "Getting Started in Transmedia Storytelling". published at his Blog: http://www.tstoryteller.com/getting-started-in-transmedia-storytelling .
Meanwhile, solutions at reach could be some proofreading in the text contents, and high res versions of tables and figures. This is because in your DVD ROM, at the Cross media @ work > Information graphics folders, images such as in "7-chapter-5.jpg" (which, by the way says "electroinc media" instead of "eletronic media")have less resolution than the others. Surprisingly, while information graphics would be basic (at least for me) through the text, Cross media @ work > Interpretive Illustrations (which are more like complementary images) are all in Tif format (considerably higher resolution).
About your comment about no republished version with Thomson/Delmar... you are right, no further data about the edition outside Amazon. Surprisingly, even a new cover design is presented in this misterious version. Here is the link at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Creating-Integrated-Media-Experiences...
Thanks again for your answer. I believe your work is interesting but it certainly needs to be polished to be a good cross media example at work.
Regards.
Enzo
Fri, 04/22/2011 - 21:04
Hi Enzo - Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I appreciate you taking the time and consideration. We've considered offering the media for free download, but it's a tricky balance for us as the sales are what enable us to run in the black. And we also want as many people to have access to our content, so we try to make the price them as low as we can while also offering the text for free download without any DRM. That said, I'm definitely going to give the manuscript another proofread and update the text, and also check on all the image resolutions to get the quality up. Thanks again and best wishes, Drew
Mon, 06/27/2011 - 11:30
FYI, Lulu.com is going to no longer offer DVD sales. This fact, along with Enzo's comments, has inspired the free download of the CMC Media Files.