Introduction

Having outlined how the contemporary theme park utilizes forms of digital media and new technologies to allow guests to plan their trips in detail and pleasurably anticipate their experiences, as well as the importance of an unofficial participatory culture, this chapter moves onto more detailed discussion of the intersections between such fannish attachments and transmedia narratives. It offers detailed analysis of the transmediality of theme park rides and the ways in which their narratives and experiences extend across media forms, beginning from Henry Jenkins’ definition of transmedia storytelling as ‘integrating multiple texts to create a narrative so large that it cannot be contained within a single medium’ (2006, p.95). As Jenkins notes,

To begin to better understand the links between theme parks, transmediality and fandom, I turn here to an in-depth analysis of one specific ride, Disney's Haunted Mansion. This also allows a response to Rahn's assertion that ‘Disney's films and their effect on children are frequently scrutinized, as are the theme parks themselves, but little detailed attention has been given to individual theme park attractions’ (2011, p. 87). This