Questions #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?

On a communication level the www has excelled and increased communication all over the world. However, on the level of literature, can we say the same? Based on “the widespread publication, without publishers”(Paterson) can we say that we believe the www has been a great source for digital literature? Yes, based on the worldwide access to literature from any sort of electronic device. However, I would have to disagree based on the wide access to publication on the Internet. Since there are very few limitations to what people can publish, and what they cannot, literature has lost a sense of ownership. Facebook, Wikipedia, and twitter allow us to post our opinions, quotes, and anything we see fit without asking if that was something we made up ourselves, or if we would like to cite our source. Automatically, when we post to social media we take ownership of what we’ve written, regardless of whether it is ours or not. With the www, digital literature expands greatly, but with the expansion literature may not always be provided by its original source. A lot of the time, we are able to type what we need into our search bar, click send, and a piece of literature may appear and we will use it but may not even know where it came from. Since we lose this the source of publication, some portion of the literature is lost because it was replicated and not actually given by the author who wrote it. As for hypertexts, how many times can we say we’ve actually clicked on all the links provided in an article we are reading? It’s almost like we think “to click or not to click” when we see a hypertext. Hypertexts leave a lot to the imagination, if we do not take the extra step to click on the link. Without clicking on the link and researching what we are reading further, to find the actual publisher or to clear any uncertainty, we leave the link to our imagination. Leaving a hypertext to our imagination may turn the digital literature into stories we’ve created in our minds.
In spite my opinion of the www having a negative impact on digital literature, do to the loss of ownership, I believe its impact on stories is a positive one. Anyone can publish anything on social media. A lot of social media posts, Facebook statuses or tweets are posted due to a disagreement or an agreement with something someone saw or heard on the news or another social media site. This process gives personal opinion to stories in the making. As Chamberlin says, stories “give meaning and value to the places we call home”(1). Therefore, our opinions about newscasts, pieces of literature, or current events give meaning to events happening around the place we call home and make them personal to us. By stating our opinions we feel closer to the story, as Chamberlin mentioned about the world: “words make us feel closer to the world we live in” (1). By reiterating stories over social media, we are expanding what we have to say to others. Since social media statuses do not need any copy write authorization, opinionated statuses, essentially stories, are shared extremely easily and passed on without the author of the post evening knowing. Hypertexts allow our imaginations to run wild if we do not click on the hyperlink, we may assume we know what’s behind the text. In Brian Dixon’s article, Social media for school leaders a comprehensive guide to getting the most out of Facebook, Twitter, and other essential web tools, he guides teaching professionals how to use
SOCIAL MEDIA(CWL Login) to their advantage because it’s all over the world. Social media and hypertexts have allowed stories to be told everywhere worldwide. Stories are passed on from generation to generation, now not only orally, like our historic ancestors, but now digitally thanks to the www. On a positive note, social media and hypertext use both speech and writing to express literature and stories. As Chamberlin mentioned, both forms “result [from] studying oral and written traditions”(1), however can we classify literature as oral, if we took it from a social media website or a hypertext link? Identifying it as a story in my opinion, is easier than calling it literature. With the www literature and stories have both expanded, however can we classify the expansion as purely positive? I’ll let you decide.

I also thought this would be cool for my readers to check out, it’s called THE SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERIMENT.

Works Cited

Chamberlin, J. Edward. “A New History of Reading: Hunting, Tracking, and Reading.” For the Geography of a Soul: Emerging Perspectives on Kamau Braithwaite. Ed. Timothy J. Reiss., 145-164. Trenton: Africa World Press, 2001. 145-164.

Dixon, Brian. “Social media for school leaders a comprehensive guide to getting the most out of Facebook, Twitter, and other essential web tools”.2012. San Francisco. Web.

The Oxford English Dictionary Online. The Oxford University Press. 2015. 6 Jan 2015.

“The Social Media Experiment”. Youtube. 13 Jan 2015. Web.