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?
*This is based on anecdotal evidence (newspapers) & opinion*
Social media tools have enabled an unprecedented growth in both global accessibility to information and in popularity in creating blogs, tweets, status updates to share personal stories. Social media has given rise to a greater freedom in story-telling, because it provides everyone with an opportunity to provide their own narrative within the world. Many websites also allow the listeners to provide feedback, comments, and ask questions as if they were present at the telling of the story. This can be seen as a merge between the divide of orality’s interaction, and literature’s static context. The popularity of video logs, blogs and other forms of social media have given people who normally wouldn’t want to share their lives and perspective a medium to promote sharing. The accessibility of social media allows any person to search and read stories of various topics with free availability, and ease. These tools have created new genres of narrative, and have created types of stories (oral and text) that would be unknown. Any country with access to internet can upload information that is globally accessible so there is no longer a need for people to seek out publishers to print their works. Social media has provided multiple perspectives on issues that go beyond general media and novels, it illuminated problems that most people would not have simply because they don’t exist in the same circumstance.
Both an advantage and disadvantage of social media over published works is that social media is not subject to the censorship that published material are. The text is not scrutinized for being inappropriate, it doesn’t have to be “dumbed down” or altered to please certain audiences. This freedom from censorship allows the shared literature to be thought-provoking, and to elicit emotions. Not to say this is absent from published works, but this uncensored literature can speak about uncomfortable topics and taboos without being hidden from the public. In some cases this freedom from censorship and general opinion is no longer true. Employers check employee social media profiles and hold them to what is said.
The downside to social media’s freedom is that there is no fact-checking of what is being said, so anyone can spread false information. Fortunately the rate of misinformed and well informed eventually equalize, and the checking of facts and sources is becoming more common. In some cases, correcting misinformation can lead to the false facts to become more deeply ingrained and believed. Another downside is that many people choose to spend their time online instead of reading books, which has led to a decrease in their linguistic capabilities.
Hypertext allows for the author to color the perception of the reader before they analyze the text. This alteration occurs through the words chosen to represent the text it links to, and the words that precede it. Hypertext has also provided a quick access to additional information about the story or literature that it’s a part of, giving the reader access to a broader depth of detail that the author could not or chose not to provide. From a general perspective hyptertexting has impacted stories and literature positively by expanding the educational capacities of the text they’re included in, and by providing the avid reader more paths that can lead to further investigation. An unfortunate side effect of hypertext is that the author can also provide misleading websites as citations for detail, or expand the horizons of false information.
What do you think? Is social media a more accessible tool providing a global voice to those who couldn’t previously share their stories? Or are its disadvantages greater than the service it provides?
Works cited:
Elizabeth, Jane. “New fact-checking research: False information floods Twitter; many Americans confidently wrong”. American Press. American Press institute., 29 Apr, 2015. Web. 22 May, 2015. http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/fact-checking-project/new-fact-checking-research-false-information-floods-twitter-many-americans-confidently-wrong/
Kelley, Susanna. “Texting, Twitter, contributing to students’ poor grammar skill, profs say”. The Globe and Mail. The Globe and Mail Inc., 1 Feb 2010. Web. 22 May 2015. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/texting-twitter-contributing-to-students-poor-grammar-skills-profs-say/article4304193/
Paterson, Erika. ENGL 470A: Canadian Studies: Canadian Literary Genres. University of British Columbia, 2015. Web. 12 May 2015.
Snowden, Collette. “Social media sackings risk stifling journalistic expression”. The Conversation.The Conversation. 21 May, 2015. Web. 22 May, 2015. http://theconversation.com/social-media-sackings-risk-stifling-journalistic-expression-41824