Authors and Readers
According to Ong (1982) and Bolter (2001) the development of print was the impetus to the separation between readers and authors. The author became a distant figure who was unable to be questioned about his/her views. Books became objects of reverence and the information they contained was rarely questioned. This is in sharp contrast to oral cultures in which the speaker had to be ready to defend their position because the audience played an active part in the conversation.
This is similar to the school textbook. Even the teacher tends to treat the course textbook as the authority on the subject matter. It has been my experience that many school teachers plan their entire year around the textbook rather than the prescribed learning outcomes of the course. This marginalizes the teacher: Teachers become a method of delivering the information that is in the textbook rather than experts in their subject areas.
It has been argued that authors have been aware of the special authority that printed work gives them and that some have attempted to distance themselves from this. Milton wrote as a prophet in Paradise Lost Tolkien wrote as though he was a translator of Bilbo Baggins’s journal (Martinez-Avila, Maigaglia, Lee and Fox, 2014). Both of these examples distance the author form the work and make the author more of a messenger rather than an expert or creator. This technique also limits the participation of the reader as the true creator is even more inaccessible than the author.
Martinez-Avila, Maigaglia, Lee and Fox (2014) also discuss an author (Soren Kierkegaard) who wrote under several pseudonym s in the mid-nineteenth century. Kierkegaard used his pseudonyms to write from different perspectives about the same topic or subject. His motive was to allow his readers to examine the issue at hand with less contextual bias.
There are, however, signs that this is changing. Pecoskie and Hill (2013) suggest that authors and readers are two parts of a complex social system and that the reader has a prominent role in impacting the creative process. One example that was discussed was the recent success of 50 Shades Of Grey. This was originally a work of fanfiction. Readers had the opportunity to read chapters as they were written and offer criticism on line. These online book talks gave readers incredible opportunity to influence the book as it was being written. Authors and readers communicate and authors can use the feedback that they gain from fans to further craft their story before it is published as a finished work.
I believe that authors will always be held in some form of reverence. Readers tend to view authors with admiration. Authors will retain a certain level of distance from their readers but that distance is shrinking. Consumers today demand more input when it comes to the development of the products that they purchase and it is easier for people to provide that feedback. As consumers of knowledge we have a responsibility to question what we are reading. As educators, we have a responsibility to teacher others to question and think about what is being pres. ented in text.
Bolter, J (2001). Writing space: computers, hypertext and the remediation of print. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Martines-Avila, D., Smiraglia, R., Lee, H. & Fox, M. (2014). What is an author now? Discourse analysis applied to the idea of an author. Journal of Documentation71, 1094-1114. doi:10.1108/JD-0502014-0068
Ong, W. (1982). Orality and Literacy. New Yourk, NY: Routledge.
Pecoskie, J. & Hill, H. (2013). Beyond traditional publishing models: an examination of the relationships between authors, readers and publishers. Journal of Documentation71, 466-476. doi:10.1108/JD-10-2013-0133
Hi James,
Thanks for your post. It certainly got me thinking about authoritative texts that might dominate my contextual sphere, as well as giving me some neat ideas for engaging lessons for student writers. Wouldn’t it be interesting to get students to debate different perspectives of a topic under pen names like Kierkegaard? It might get them more comfortable at an early age to engage in debate from multiple angles. They could pre-submit their names to you, so you know who’s who, and they don’t necessary give their views up to their peers.
You touched on the social element of modern writing with your example of how 50 Shades of Grey was written. (As a complete aside, the fan feedback mustn’t have been that high quality; the writing – style, plot, story – is absolutely terrible in that series.) Modern social writing, though, can be as large as novel authorship, or as small as microblogging. I believe that we revere authors who write or even co-write full-length books; I think we are less in awe of something smaller, in general. However, that doesn’t mean that small texts cannot have a sizable influence on a person. In fact, as someone who regularly uses social media such as Twitter to aid in professional learning, I have to say that much of my growth as an educator has come from my online network! The educators that I follow might only have 140 characters with which to craft their message, but it is the powerful of crafting those messages together that results in professional educational discourse and the growth I discussed. By the way, many teachers on Twitter heavily dislike textbooks; I was smiling when I read that part of your post.
Thanks again,
Victoria
Hi James,
I really enjoyed reading your post, particularly because of your elaboration on the topic regarding the shrinking distance between authors and readers. Prior to this module’s readings, I had never considered to what extent technology has helped transform the writing and reading spaces by enabling readers to become, in some ways, active participants in the writing process.
As mentioned by Ong (1992), print prevented readers from reaching the author, thereby creating a distance between them. As such, content within the text could not directly be influenced, refuted or challenged. However, with the proliferation of new digital platforms and writing spaces, more readers are able to voice their opinions and ideas while generating more discourses with each other and authors. Your example of how readers were able to influence the writing of 50 Shades of Grey reminded me of the social reading app “Wattpad”. This app enables authors, new or published, to post and share their creative works with a wide audience. Users within this online community are able to comment on each other’s work, join groups with similar interests, and collaborate together. In addition, readers are able to “like” stories, become official fans of certain works and send private messages to authors they admire (Lueke et al., 2013). These new writing spaces have created opportunities for readers to become directly connected to authors, thereby providing writers with new insights on what people want to read. However, I can’t help but wonder to what extent these sites are also influencing the types or genre of books being published. For example, would a publisher be more inclined to support a book if the author is able to demonstrate that he or she already has a following of readers? In a situation such as this, does the power remain at the hands of the publishing companies or has it been relinquished to the readers?
While I agree with you that there will likely always be a distance between authors and readers, I personally believe that electronic writing has helped bridge the gap between them such that authors are less likely to be viewed as imperial figures, as they once were, and that readers are no longer simply consumers of information.
Lueke, T., Ramirez, K. & Weidner, T. (2013). Disrupting the Publishing Value Chain. ResearchGate. Retrieved from http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Thomas_Lueke/publication/236856158_Disrupting_the_Publishing_Value_Chain/links/00b49519876b93aeee000000.pdf
Ong, W. (1982). Orality and Literacy. New York, NY: Routledge.as
Your comment about the new interaction between authors and readers really struck home with me as I am currently a ‘beta-reader’ for a fantasy novel being written by a co-worker’s fiancé. I plan on starting the first chapter once I finish my posts. This is my first experience being a beta-reader and I was surprised by the extensiveness of the pre-reading survey I completed (in addition to the copyright agreement). The survey asked me about my reading patterns, my likes and dislikes, and thoughts about the title of the book. It was quite thorough. At the end of each cluster of chapters, there is another survey that provides me the opportunity to reflect on the text (and my own preferences) and provide feedback to the author.
This type of back and forth develops a symbiosis between the author and reader. The author benefits from feedback and advertising via word-of-mouth from the beta-reader, while the reader gains a personalization to the text and free access to content they enjoy. In addition to the formal editing process the text must endure, the feedback loop between beta-reader and author during production of the text is an incredible method to refine the end product.
This close connection between with reader is a very different than the traditional relationship established by the author and their audience. At book signings, readers line up to say thank you to their favourite authors. In this new dynamic, should not the author being saying thank you to those who assisted in the distillation of their thoughts into a profitable commercial venture?
Thanks for sharing your insightful post. I completely agree with you that written works, such as textbooks, create distinct roles of authority and ownership. There is a great deal of responsibility among teachers and learners to critically analyze their sources and consider the possibility of author bias. We shouldn’t let an individual or organization’s fancy title or reputation cloud our judgment regarding the content of their works.
This point brings to mind Wikipedia, and the crowd-sourcing mechanism behind it, which has led many to believe that it is not a reliable source of information. This became evident to me after being repeatedly told by my teachers not to use it as a scholarly reference. I remember being shocked to learn recently that a study published in Nature science journal determined the information on Wikipedia to be just as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica (Terdiman, 2005). I think the surprise stemmed from the fact that these two sources are approached with very different attitudes. “I read it on Wikipedia, so I’m not sure if it is actually true” versus “It must be true, I read it in Britannica”. Perhaps the lack of distance between reader and author, as they are essentially one in the same in the case of Wikipedia entries, is what makes people wary of its credibility?
I think that once we develop a perception of a particular individual or organization, it can be hard to remain objective toward the information they put out. However, there is certainly power in numbers when it comes to crowdsourcing, collaboration, and doing our research to seek out different perspectives on a particular topic. I recall a John Dewey quote from one of our earlier readings, “The world has suffered more from leaders and authorities than from the masses” (Willinskey, 2002). This very notion holds true in the ongoing exchange of knowledge, made possible by the World Wide Web. Beyond platforms that rely on crowdsourcing is the practice of social bookmarking, which allows users to develop a shared database of knowledge, comprised of items which are tagged for easy access and membership within appropriate collections (Udell, 2004). The real power, as Udell (2004) explains, stems from the ability to access all content from other users, that corresponds with your chosen tag. Such a constructive approach to knowledge exploration is only possible when the author and the reader are no longer two distinct entities, but two intertwining roles, within the capacity of each individual to fill.
Reference:
Terdiman, D. (2005). Study: Wikepedia as accurate as Britannica. CNET. Retrieved from http://www.cnet.com/news/study-wikipedia-as-accurate-as-britannica/
Udell, J. (2004). Collaborative knowledge gardening. Info Word. Retrieved from http://www.infoworld.com/article/2667282/application-development/collaborative-knowledge-gardening.html
Willinsky, J. (2002). Democracy and education: The missing link may be ours. Harvard educational review. 72, 367-392.