The Networked Reception of Transmedial Universes – an Experience-Centered Approach

This paper reflects on how to study the increasingly complex user engagement with transmedial worlds, building upon ten years of empirical work on this phenomenon. We examine our own analytical evolution from an initial aesthetic orientation to our current effort to incorporate the user´s own perspective through qualitative and quantitative studies. We argue that mapping user experience requires a sophisticated and holistic analytical approach not the least due to the popularity of social media platforms. We conclude the article by developping the concept of "networked reception" to characterize the new kinds of transmedial world experience afforded by social media, which allow users to distribute and communicate not only about the content of media texts, but also about their own experience and reception of the transmedial world “texts”.