Only half the story: Radio drama, online audio and transmedia storytelling

Online audio drama creates the potential not just for new forms and patterns of listening (on-demand and audience-controlled) or for revised methods of plot structuring (with series stacking allowing for the use of extended narrative arcs) but of a complete recreation of the listening experience as part of an act of transmedia storytelling – one in which the narrative spins out of the wireless and overlays the ‘lived’ experience of the listener. This article will discuss the opportunities that have been opened up for writers and producers of radio drama through the development of online and downloadable audio. It will discuss the use of both social media tools and diverse media platforms in a construction of story in which the membrane between the real and fictive has become permeable. It will focus on the author’s ongoing work on The Flickerman, a piece of applied creative research that began as an attempt to explore the possibilities offered to writers by working outside conventional radio networks, and has developed into a piece of as-live, collaborative, open-source storytelling.