A strong example is Twitch Plays Pokémon, a livestreamed, collectively controlled story in which thousands of online participants influenced the same game. Its combination of live video, global networking, audience participation, and real-time computation could not exist in a static medium.
System: Twitch Plays Pokémon used the Twitch streaming platform, internet networks, live chat, and software that translated viewers’ messages into commands for a running Pokémon game. The audience therefore became both spectator and participant, demonstrating the IB Digital Society content topic of digital media.
Example specifics: The original stream began in 2014. Viewers entered commands such as “up,” “down,” or “A” into Twitch chat, and software applied these inputs to a shared game. Unexpected victories, failures, characters, and community jokes formed an emergent narrative that no single author completely controlled.
Impacts and implications: The immediate impact was the creation of a large online community whose collective decisions shaped the story. Participants developed shared interpretations and traditions around unpredictable events. An implication is that future stories may increasingly distribute creative control among platforms, software, creators, and audiences, although participation can also be unequal because highly active groups, platform rules, and technical systems may influence whose input matters.
Concepts: This example shows expression because ideas and experiences were represented through gameplay, chat, memes, and collective decision-making. It also demonstrates systems: interacting players, algorithms, network infrastructure, and platform rules produced intended and unintended consequences.
A common misconception is that any story viewed online is a new digital form. A streamed film is still linear storytelling. In an IB response, explain the specific digital affordances that transform expression, such as interactivity, real-time participation, computational processing, and networked collaboration. This topic is shared by SL and HL students. For an question, identify the digital system and give reasons why the narrative depends on it; for a question, also consider limits, stakeholder power, and whether the form is truly transformative.