Assignment 1.2
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’ve been stewing about how I want to answer this question for a couple of days now, and I have decided that the best way to write about hyperlinking is to free-write and see where my thoughts take me. Here I go.
Hyperlinking can be understood as controlled digression, that is to say, in a formal publication the “hyperlink” takes place in footnotes, and particularly end notes. With end notes you follow the instructions of the superscript and flip to the end of a work (rather than allowing your eyes to merely skim the bottom of the page) either immediately to enhance your experience of reading and the opportunity to learn, or you can bypass them altogether.
(Sorry to everyone reading this rather obvious description!)
In a less formal platform (such as a freelance blog, or Facebook, or Twitter), the hyperlink takes on a less serious role. The hyperlink is completely autonomous and controlled by the author; it is completely up the the writer whether or not she wishes to include a link to a video of puppies just because she can, just as it is equally at her discretion to link her readers to other insightful blogs from her online English class. Bearing this freedom in mind, the reader is offered a 50/50 chance of choosing to see something to be considered for fun or for intellectual stimulation, and the writer is completely within her own rights to decide that direction. It is different from formally published institutions because of the formalities of editing. The end result is no longer the result of a single author’s fanciful thought, but rather a collaboration, or at least something composed with the goal of passing inspection.
With regards to storytelling, I think the hyperlink is an easily accessible internet aside. For example, when I tell stories out loud to my friends, or family, or coworkers, I tell reaaaalllllyy looooong stories full of completely useless and unrelated information. In fact, they often tell me this. And I keep doing it. And I am doing it now. And I’m pretty sure my listeners never listen to my entire stories. The fact that I can share a story (told formally or informally) online through the act of typing is immediately more structured than any story I would just spew organically. Even when I rehearse I sidetrack. When I type online, I can at least organize paragraphs or delete that last comma.
I suppose at the end of all that, I would still argue that “literature”, and “stories”, and “orality” are divisions based upon their potential consumption. Literature must be read, and is therefore written with the intent of readership, and is therefore subject to a lot of editing. Editing in a formal sense infers writing for a certain expectation in the reader. Editing in an informal sense suggests at least a small amount of organization and planning. Stories complicate the divisions because they hold the most open definition. A story can be anything from regaling what you did over the weekend to a fictional comment on an aspect of the world. They can be published by a publisher, posted online, or shared orally. A story to me, is an open definition for a reflection on the world, whether fictional or non-fictional. Orality is a verbal version of a story, and ties in to the notion of a hyperlink because it is so vulnerable to change. I don’t want to make it sound like I am suggesting that oral tales are less significant or impactful; what I am trying to say is that oral stories are more flexible in the exactitude of the spoken words. Words on paper are set type, whereas words spoken change slightly each time (whether in exact word or through inflection) or are rehearsed from a written work. Hyperlinks in any of these distinctions are simply a venue to channel extraneous thoughts.
Courtney McNeil would agree that it is important that I defined “literature” as differing from “stories” and “orality” in terms of their “status as medium” rather than “existing in competition with other media forms”.
Works cited
Courtney MacNeil, “Orality.” The Chicago School of Media Theory. Uchicagoedublogs. 2007. Web. 17 Jan. 2014. <http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/mediatheory/keywords/orality/>.
🙂 Thanks Jessica
Wow. Thanks Jessica. I really enjoyed reading that! Except the part where there were no puppies. That was really messed up of you.
For freewriting, that was a fairly cohesive and readable post. So good job! However, I’m not sure that I’m entirely understanding the relationship between hyperlinks and oral storytelling based on being subject to change. I agree that they are similar to an aside, or to a footnote, depending on the use. Perhaps I’ve missed something… (It wouldn’t be the first time.)
Anyway, it’s refreshing to read a post with some humour in it. I’ll look forward to more of your posts in the future!
Hi Jessica,
Thanks! That was a great read and informative. I do take issue with the ghost puppy link though, I am more of a baby-sloth hyperlink chaser myself and I really put myself out there going after puppies. I’m guilty of being a rambler, and I have to forewarn people when I am telling stories about how much time might be involved. Guess I should warn you this rambles on…
Oh, it’s about to get real, I was doing my best to write a quick little response and my brain wandered down these musing pathways. So, I suppose free writing didn’t work out for me.
I enjoyed your definition of story and literature, and editing, oh-so-good!
Question time: if a story is writen and edited, is it literature? How can we get back to a story from literature?
I see literature as a story with highly constrained rules and words. As a kid I always resented that, I felt that rules had no place in storytelling. Now I see there is some value added (Re: Science background) because often we cannot meet the author to clarify questions as we are able to with storytellers. Now is when i start confusing myself, because what about plays, or audiobooks? They can be literary, and then brought to life and given meaning, but I feel as though even though they regain the impermanence of performance they never make it back to being a story told by a teller. I suppose they still are stories, but filtered and mirrored from their original teller, context, and language. Perhaps we can bring them back to life, but not make them alive.
I’m baffled, mostly. So thanks for that.
Nutshell: If story is writen and edited it can become literature. And to return literature to a story perhaps we need to read between the lines and add new words and meaning (de-editing, maybe creating)?
Jessica,
I thought you made a really good point with regards to hyperlinking, and the story within a story it can provide. As you observed, in literature and orally, this form of storytelling can be a long and tedious process that distracts the listener/reader and at times disturbs their interest. However the use of a hyperlink provides immediate reference, and allows for exact interpretation, no details left out. It leads one to wonder however if the increased use of the internet and hyperlinking is to the detriment of people’s storytelling abilities, as they are reliant on other media as forms of expression, and thus this leaves less to the imagination and ones ability to capture it.
Hi Jessica,
I really like your definition of a hyperlink as an internet aside. It does seem to allow for an article to remain on track, without going off on tangents, as people often do when telling stories orally. I’m not sure if the use of hyperlinks actually allows the reader to become more focused on the story. When I’m reading an article and there is a hyperlink to puppies, for example, I often get distracted looking at the puppies, and then move on to another page from that page and so on, eventually forgetting about the original article. Obviously that did not happen while I was reading your blog though haha.