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?
Social media tools and the Internet in general made it easier for the reader to gain access to publications of any kind. It is also easier now, than ever, to publish any kind of publication on your own without the need of a publisher.
This ease of publication allows more works to be made public. For example, works that without the Internet would have been denied by a publisher. Because there is no formal publisher, regardless if your work is controversial or not, your work will still be published because you are your own publisher. Being your own publisher offers you the freedom and responsibility to decide whether you want to publish controversial work. Hence the formal publisher is not put into the position of being afraid of losing their reputation due to the publication of controversial work. There is also no formal publisher filtering out unprofitable work resulting in more works being made public. Because works don’t have to be commercially successful anymore and no one is filtering the writer’s output by any regulations not only more works will be available to the public but they will also cover a wider range of topics.
If you have something to say, you can do it. Nobody is stopping you. No matter whether it is a novel, fiction, non-fiction, a poem, or any other type of text. This ease of publication and the massive user base of social media platforms allow writers to reach a large amount of people, even without having any kind of name recognition. There are many services now, specialized to support people in self-publishing books. So your story will not only be available digital on your blog or social media account but it will also exist as a real book which can be ordered by people. Lulu (Online Self Publishing Book & eBook Company – Lulu), one of these services, uses the slogan “Create, publish and sell your book for free.”
Hypertext, the use of links in story or literature, opens up new possibilities. eWriters can use links to enrich their stories. If they mention the Egyptian pyramids, for example, they are able to link to a picture of those pyramids. Or an explanation of the cultural significance of the pyramids. The possibilities are endless and can be used to enhance the reading experience. Of course these links can also be a distraction, steering the reader away from a writer’s work and interrupting the reading experience, making it harder to follow what is being said. Links even allow for a form of interactive literature. It is possible to write a story and at times – when there is a point in the story where a protagonist is making a decision – give the reader the possibility of making this decision for the protagonist by providing links for different courses of action that lead to different outcomes. This way the story can split up again and again. The reader has an influence on how the story goes on and the storyline doesn’t have to be linear anymore. There are services that support authors in the creation of those interactive stories. Take a look at this example story, “Neighbourhood Predators” by Jon Ingold (Ingold) using inklewriter (inklewriter), one of the services helping you in creating interactive stories, to see how an interactive story can work.
Online Self Publishing Book & eBook Company – Lulu. Lulu Press, Inc., 2002-2016, https://www.lulu.com/. Accessed 17 Sep. 2016.
Ingold, Jon. “Neighbourhood Predators.”https://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/neighbourhoodpredators Accessed 17 Sep. 2016.
inklewriter. inkle Ltd, http://www.inklestudios.com/inklewriter/. Accessed 17 Sep. 2016.
I thought your comments about the ease of publishing to be interesting. Given there is no limitation to who may be published as one becomes one own publisher, could there be unintended negative side effects to this freedom?
I really am not sure myself what I think about this and all in all, I am hoping it is a good thing.
Do you think there should be limitations placed on what can be said, like hate propaganda or false information about the Holocaust or the First Nations history?
Hey Colleen!
Thanks for the reply!
I do believe it is a very good thing that publication can be so easy now! The writer can publish anything, so there could be negative side effects to this, since if they publish something politically incorrect they could have backlash and criticism towards them.
I don’t really believe there should be limitations on what can be said. I believe in the right to free speech, but of course if you publish something like hate propaganda or false information about the Holocaust or First Nations history, you might hear about it in a negative way later.
I think ultimately it is the reader’s job to make sure they are getting their information in a good source. I think the reader needs to make sure they do their research in at least a few sources first, before they listen blindly to just one writer.