Transmedia storytelling techniques in the coverage of socially important issues (case study "First regional" media holding)

The research centers around the urgent issue of transmedia storytelling application in the coverage of socially significant topics. Media editors implement new tools of creating and presenting information, while expanding social interaction with the audience via new media platforms under the conditions of media space transformation due to the development of information-and-communication technologies, digitalization, acceleration of mass information flows, changes in media consumption. Transmedia storytelling, i. e. narration based on multiple media platforms, is an advanced technology of communication that emerges in today’s media space. The research considers and describes different approaches to the interpretation of the «transmedia storytelling» concept and identifies its techniques. Transmedia storytelling techniques are determined to be actively implemented in the daily practice of media editors, including the Russian regions’ editorial offices. The aim of the article is to examine the techniques of transmedia storytelling in the coverage of socially significant issues in the regional media. The empirical basis for the research is the media holding of Chelyabinsk region «First Regional». The author investigates the technologies of transmedia storytelling on the holding’ key media platforms - OTV channel, 1Obl.TV online broadcasting portal, the website of the information agency «First Regional» and its accounts in social networks, Telegram-channel - as a case study of natural disaster coverage: wildfire in the Chelyabinsk region in the summer of 2021. The analysis of extensive materials allows identifying the specificities of storytelling, based on narration focused on a socially significant problem - fires in settlements and their consequences. Such narration, based on several media platforms, is taking on the attributes of transmedia, which allows the editors fully, appropriately and promptly informing the audience about the emergency, presenting different points of view how to solve the problem, making the issue of fire safety extremely relevant. The study of content, thematic and genre aspects of the materials as well as structural and functional characteristics of media platforms has identified the most efficient techniques of transmedia storytelling and revealed the problems of its implementation.