Assignment 1:3 – Reader’s Choice

At the beginning of this lesson I pointed to the idea that technological advances in communication tools have been part of the impetus to rethink the divisive and hierarchical categorizing of literature and orality, and suggested that this is happening for a number of reasons.  I’d like you to consider two aspects of digital literature: 1) social media tools that enable widespread publication, without publishers, and 2) Hypertext, which is the name for the text that lies beyond the text you are reading, until you click. How do you think these capabilities might be impacting literature and story?

I agree with Courtney Macneil‘s point that it is unfair to privilege written cultures over oral cultures, particularly when the technology we have today blurs the lines between written and oral so thoroughly. While the written word used to be the more stagnant form, and oral stories the more malleable form, the two are becoming closer than ever in this regard. Oral stories can now be recorded in a permanent form. Smart phone users can send texts via snapchat never to be read again after the first time. The reader and the listener have more power than ever to choose what they absorb, and what they pass on to others.

Just like the printing press revolutionized the publishing industry in the 1400s by making the written word accessible to all classes of people, self-publishing companies like Kindle are cutting out the gatekeepers of literature, allowing readers access to a multitude of works they might never have seen otherwise. The downside to this is that a lot of poor writing is now available (although we know publishers didn’t always get it right anyways). The reader now becomes the one who has to sort the good from the bad rather than the publishing house. With such varying tastes in literature, maybe it makes more sense to have the reader as the gatekeeper. Although author, Amanda Hocking, who has become a millionaire selling Kindle books, admits that there is a randomness to what does well in the self-publishing industry. She compares herself to author J.L. Bryan who she believes is a better writer than her and publishes in the same genre, yet sells less books than her. Self-publishing is at the whim of the popular readers’ taste, something that’s not always easy to discern. It is important to note that the majority of the publishing industry is still controlled by print media, although ebooks are becoming more popular than ever.

What I find most interesting about the prevalence of self-publishing today (not so much in terms of e-books, but in terms of blogs and tweets and other forms of social media) is that it has made it very difficult for any body of power to enact wide scale censorship. The Arab Spring in 2011 used social media to collectively protest against their governments. At the time it seemed like an unstoppable movement, but it turns out the countries who participated in the protest haven’t seen much change on the ground floor. Having now caught on, governments are able to use social media as a powerful tool for propaganda in the same way that protestors did. With news coming to us often in the moment it happens or immediately after, false information is as easily spread as shocking truths. We are less likely to see stories from journalists who have taken the time to verify all the information, and can come to us with a fully formed viewpoint on the situation. Once again, the reader has become the gatekeeper in deciding what sources they believe and which ones they don’t believe.

Hyperlinks are an interesting addition to written culture in that they allow the reader to access further information about a subject easily, and to see the works that an author has built their own opinion on. When the written word was just print on a page, we had to take the author at his word or otherwise go to the library for some in-depth research. Now with the click of a mouse, we can see exactly what they are talking about and form our own opinion on it, that may be in line or in opposition to the original article we read. We can also have the written word augmented by videos or photos that may speak to us in a different way. Or we can just read the article and not click on anything. That is what technology has brought us: choice. Sometimes an overwhelming amount of choice!

 

Works Cited

Blakeley, Kiri. “Who Wants To Be A (Kindle) Millionaire?” Forbes Magazine. Forbes, 6 Mar. 2011. Web. 27 Jan. 2016.

Hempel, Jessi. “Social Media Made the Arab Spring, But Couldn’t Save It.” Wired Business. Wired Magazine, 26 Jan. 2016. Web. 27 Jan. 2016.

MacNeil, Courtney. “Orality.” The Chicago School of Media Theory. Uchicagoedublogs. 2007. Web. 19 Feb. 2013

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