Status: In preparation
Expected publication: Winter 2026/2027
Author: Ilkka Lähteenmäki
Abstract
Transmedia history is practice and study of how historical knowledge, narratives, and representations are distributed across multiple media platforms and formats. In transmedia history each instantiation of historical content is understood to contribute something distinct to the overall picture of the past rather than simply repeating the same content in different media. In this view the past is no longer encountered primarily through single authoritative medium like monograph, documentary, or a museum exhibition, but through an ecosystem of media formats that play to their strengths. The central idea is that media operate complementary to each other. For example, scholarly monographs present complex arguments and narratives about the past, documentary films are very good at invoking emotional responses, video games offer interaction, while social media formats compress, dramatize and optimize the shareability of the content. All these emphasize different aspects of our relation to the past and operate as kinds of access points to a larger abstract body of historical knowledge which transcendents any singular historical representation.
Keywords: transmedia history, popular history, historical representation, visual history, historical games
Ilkka Lähteenmäki
is a historical theorist who currently splits his workhours between trying to understand historical representation through inferentialist philosophy and learning python in effort to do visual history studies with large datasets. He is affiliated with the History of Science and Ideas and the Centre for Philosophical Studies of History at the University of Oulu.