Question 7: 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?
Literature, as discussed, is written text often in a bound book that creates, in the 21st century, an archaic aesthetic of having a cup of tea under a cozy blanket with a fire going. A story is, more often than not, the kinds of tales that children are told when they are being tucked into bed, or the horror stories whispered into the pitch black of a friend’s living room. The idea of literature and storytelling has been altered by technological advancements and ravished by time. Today, no child wants to pick up a book to read, opting for the quicker and more accessible digitized versions on the internet. The internet is the best teacher, the best friend, and the best storyteller. The internet impacts literature and storytelling in two ways: (a) the controller of the narrative, and (b) the types of stories being told.
Who controls the narrative?
In the past, it is the writer. The story that they write becomes the sole canon and the accepted truth about the universe they have created. It is a single-dimensional method of communication between the author and the reader. The author speaks the reality of the story, and the reader accepts this as the actual canon. With the rise of the internet in the past decade, this single-dimensional relationship has been altered in unimaginable ways. Audiences now have the power to control the course of a story and the way that it is shared. Movies and TV Shows are a fantastic form of visual story-telling that takes the audiences on a roller-coaster of emotions. Large franchises cast well-known actors and actresses to support their story while monitoring every single outlet for possible leaks.
Spoilers and spoiling a story is now an unforgivable sin. Reflector Entertainment’s article discusses this new power-dynamic through Star Wars and Marvel. These stories are judged and judged again by their audience in presentation, casting, and story-telling. The internet has not made story-telling any more relaxed; in fact, it has turned it into a nightmare.
What types of stories are being written?
Printed texts are now considered outdated, with many people often choosing to read e-books on a tablet or a Kindle. Literature studied in many English classes has had their canons altered by the headcanons of their readers. Sites like Tumblr, Discord, and Reddit give fans a space to share their ideas of the texts that they have read and create stories of their own. Fan-made fiction takes the themes, characters, or events presented within literature and changing it into entirely new stories. Of course, all with good intentions, these stories are now more politically correct and more inclusive for the new generation of voracious readers seeking a place to exist. Of course, stories are also being told through mobile phone apps in which players are made to text messages to the game for a response, often ones leading to horrific endings. Aleks Krotoski writes an interesting article for The Guardian about the new age of media sharing and story-telling that has changed the course of literature.
Social media and the internet has changed stories and literature because it has changed the way that people interact with the world. We are more likely to be staring at a phone screen than really taking the time to truly live in the reality around us. Stories can only truly connect with those who are interacting with the world the same way the story is showing the world, as such, digital stories have to be the new medium because the internet is our new world.
Works Cited
@avengers. “Don’t do it. #Don’tSpoilTheEndgame” Twitter, 25, Apr. 2019, 9:30 a.m., https://twitter.com/Avengers/status/1121451301290663938.
Krotoski, Aleks. “Storytelling: digital technology allows us to tell tales in innovative new ways.” The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/aug/07/digital-media-storytelling-internet. Accessed 17 January 2020.
Reflector Entertainment. “Storytelling in the Time of the Internet.” Medium.com, https://medium.com/storyworld/storytelling-in-the-time-of-the-internet-5c8c0a0809c0. Accessed 17 January 2020.
Hi Stephanie!
I really enjoyed your discussion of how the internet provides a platform for more dimensional storytelling, as control over a narrative has come to be in the hands of more people than solely the author. I think the internet provides a means of documentation similar to what is accomplished through literature, while also providing the agency of oral traditions (as we may all take on the role of the author through the internet). How do you think that this hybrid form of storytelling through technology will aid in the future of decolonizing Indigenous literature? To be more specific, how will the internets accessibility and the agency it provides aid in this process?
Hi Lilly,
I will be honest with you; I don’t think it will aid in the decolonization of Indigenous literature for a few reasons. I do not believe that the internet and the way that it functions as a medium of communication allows for the space for decolonization. I know it is a space that preaches inclusivity and the internet has given a space for many inclusive forums and websites to exist. However, indigenous literature is a sensitive subject due to the systematic oppression that is continuously suffered by the indigenous people even now. Until institutions of power genuinely acknowledge the existence of indigenous power, there is little space for that literary growth anywhere. There will be space for it because the internet has a space for everything, but it will not be a space that can be easily accessed, like maybe the fourth page of results of Google.