Happy Friday all! For Assignment 1:3 I will be answering this question seven. I am particularly interested and intrigued by this question because I have worked for digital marketing agencies and have crafted digital stories as a means of communication for a variety of different clients in different industries. The question is as follows: “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?”.
While literature and story take two different paths, there are areas of collision and this sometimes occur in the world of digital writing; a world that is still unfamiliar even if having existed for over two decades. Chamberlain’s book, If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories: Finding Common Ground discusses the importance of history and of stories as a method of recognition to land. In a time where government officials were in the process of claiming indigenous land, an elder asked “If this is your land, where are your stories” before switching to his traditional language in which he chose to share a personal and cultural story with strangers in front of him. This story allowed the government to suddenly understand the emotional ties and the belonging that this indigenous community had with the land. I am going to speak about how people can leverage social media and digital communications to tell stories and find common ground and/or understanding.
Monica Anderson, Skye Toor, Lee Rainie, and Aaron Smith speak in “Public Attitudes Toward Political Engagement on Social Media” on how the internet has become a place for individuals to reach a large audience regarding important and sometimes controversial topics. This group describes digital literature platforms as a “key venue” for these conversations. These platforms allow people to listen to stories that they were not initially aware that they wanted to or were ready to listen to. Social media provides a place for people to stumble across personal stories and issues that otherwise would not have been seen unless being looked for. Readers tend to be more inclined to stories written by the source as opposed to by a third party. Individuals turn blind eyes to topics that they are uncomfortable with or have conservative stances on but with digital literature, naiveness is not an option.
To answer the second part of this complex question, hyperlinks are an optional contribution to a text that only those interested in enough will decide to click. They are virtually non existent beyond their underline until the reader cares to look further. Hyperlinks provide further context to literature and story and allow a reader who is uneducated on the particular topic to become otherwise and further understand.
Thank you for reading my blog! I look forward to reading yours!
Hi Alexandra,
When I read that you have worked for digital marketing agencies I had to ask your opinion on the internet and social media!
I agree with lots of your points above. The internet and social media is a fantastic platform for many individuals to discuss and debate topics. It provides a opportunity for like minded people to find each other when they may not have done so off – line. However, the anonymous nature of the www also propels individuals to say things that they may not have said off line due to backlash and polarization (https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2016/10/25/the-political-environment-on-social-media/). People on the www are far more likely to bully other internet users that they would not normally have personal access too. Generally, it seems as though people behave very differently online.
While users have an opportunity to find topics outside their interest, I’m not sure it can be described as stumbling across new content. Algorithms and targeted ads have a very large impact on what internet users find online (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/03/23/what-you-dont-know-about-internet-algorithms-is-hurting-you-and-you-probably-dont-know-very-much/). Algorithms change google search results, new feeds, and recommended pages. Additionally, company’s ability to purchase user information for targeted ads also dictates what we see when we visit websites including social media.
Do you think that targeted ads and algorithms work against the idea of free speech and exploration on the internet or do they function like a better hyperlink by supplying the reader with similar but new content? Do you think that some people or topics are unfairly and negatively effected by targeted ads and algorithms?
Thanks for chatting with me,
Emily
Work Cited:
Dewey, Caitlin. “What You Dont Know About Internet Algorithms is Hurting You. (And You Probably Don’t Know Very Much!)” The Washington Post, 23 Mar. 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/03/23/what-you-dont-know-about-internet-algorithms-is-hurting-you-and-you-probably-dont-know-very-much/. Accessed 20 Jan. 2020.
Duggan, Maeve and Smith, Aaron. “The Political Environment On Social Media” PEW Research Centre: Internet and Technology, 25 Oct. 2016, https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2016/10/25/the-political-environment-on-social-media/. Accessed 20 Jan. 2020.
Hi Maya, Jack Hauen here. I really liked this post. I’m interested in the last bit, where you mention that hyperlinks are “virtually non existent beyond their underline.” I agree with that sentiment in the vast majority of cases, but do you think there might be some options to use them more creatively in telling stories?
I’ve seen articles where, when the author is trying to make a point, they’ll write a sentence like “The public reaction to the CEO’s comments was swift and extremely negative” — and they’ll hyperlink each individual word in the sentence with a link to a different tweet slamming the CEO’s comments. For me, that reads as more impactful than the sentence alone.
Hyperlinks definitely function as solely information tools on sites like Wikipedia, where the goal is writing as neutrally as possible. But still, I often find myself in a “wiki hole” from clicking on too many interesting links about things I hadn’t heard of before. Perhaps this is an unintentional way hyperlinks can function as an innovative way to tell and interact with information?
I’d be interested to hear your thoughts, since I think everything you said was technically correct. Hyperlinks can’t function as anything but a link to more information, by limitation of their design. But I’m curious about whether you think the way they’re deployed can change meaning or impact.
*Sorry Alexandra, I saw Maya’s name on another comment and my brain substituted her name for yours! My bad.