Understanding Transmedia Music on YouTube through Disney Storytelling

Abstract

Transmedia storytelling has been integrated into contemporary society through social media, where influencers have enabled the building of worlds. Within this environment of human-interaction, fiction and converging social realities have become an essential tool to tell stories. On YouTube, storytelling has expanded to music, where cover videos take on great relevance. The aim of this study is to understand the transmedia music phenomenon due to the impact of music on the platform. To this end, we applied a methodology that stemmed from Grounded Theory principles in the analysis of 300 Disney animation song covers in three stages: (1) deductive and inductive codebook development; (2) social network analysis; and (3) statistical test. The results showed that youtubers highlight specific audiovisual codes from the film and cultural industries. Furthermore, we observed these productions often display configurations that expand the original story through performance, location, costumes, make-up, among others. We argue that, on the digital sphere, a sustainable transmedia music paradigm is developing, where performers construct more meaningful and valuable stories.