Hello, fellow bloggers! Today I will be evaluating hypertext and widely accessible self-publishing platforms as two facets of digital media that are changing the ways we tell and experience stories.
I would suggest that both of these have similar effects on literature and story: they blur the lines between author and reader. Hypertext, for example, encourages readers to interact and engage with text media. By allowing readers to be selective about what they click on, the author is bestowing some of their authorial power on readers. This differs from traditional print media because in something like a novel, we are generally expected to read everything. Thus, this agency allows readers to shape their own reading experience; they are no longer confined entirely to the whim of the author. Additionally, hypertext is moving the entirety of the written world towards a potential singularity, as linked text leads to linked text until all works are connected. This is similar to what Project Ocean was trying to accomplish. For anyone unfamiliar with Project Ocean, it was the codename for Google Books. The project, aside from making novels more widely accessible, sought to create intertextuality by providing hyperlinks to any books or papers that a text made reference to. Project Ocean ended up failing, almost entirely due to a number of lawsuits and copyright strikes. However, the idea to use hypertext to link all works would have diminished the role of the author even further, as all texts would have begun to blur together. Thus, we can see how hypertext can play a role in reconfiguring the relationship between author and reader.
Self-publishing websites have also complicated the strict reader/writer binate. The first example of digital self-publishing that comes to my mind is fan fiction. Fan fiction enables readers to reshape their favourite stories, stepping into the role of author and rewriting sections of the story they disliked, sometimes even completely undoing or ignoring a plot point of the original novel. In this way, the author’s power over their story diminishes as it falls into the hands of fans. This lack of the control the author has over their work once it has been surrendered to the public constitutes some natural progression of the theory of the ‘Death of the Author‘, as described by Roland Barthes. As authorial intention and identity becomes less important, we are free to divorce the author from the work and reshape stories according to our will.
Of course, self-publishing online is not limited to fan fiction; it can also refer to blogs like this one. These are both a blessing and a curse. Since one no longer needs to go through a traditional publisher to disseminate ideas widely, those who often find themselves shuttered out of the male-and-white dominated publishing world are given a chance to bypass the system entirely. The fact that a majority of fan fiction is written by women is highly suggestive of this. However, this egalitarianism means that those with a more pernicious agenda are also given a global platform. Readers need to have more critical awareness of what they are reading than in the pre-digital world, where works had to go through official channels. Hypertext also plays a role here, as it is often used as a way to source claims and encourage fact-checking; but, as I mentioned, we do not have to click through hyperlinks.
To close out this discussion of digital media, I would propose that certain social media tools that use self-publication are troubling the traditional hierarchy that places orality below literacy by creating a hybridized oral-literate medium. I am thinking here of ‘story-time’ YouTube videos. In his (problematic) seminal work, Orality and Literacy, Walter Ong points out that “sound exists only when it is going out of existence” (Ong 70) and is thus inferior to the permanency of the written word. He also states that “when a speaker is addressing an audience, the members of the audience normally become a unity,” while “writing and print isolate” (73). Story-time YouTube videos do not conform to either of these facts. The video format makes sound permanent and fixed, but the oral story-teller is separated from their audience – they are speaking to a camera, and each individual audience member watches alone, breaking up the ‘unity’ of the audience. Thus, traditional boundaries between oral and literate cultures are obfuscated, and this hierarchy loses relevance. As our technologies advance even further, I would suggest that the hierarchy will eventually be rendered obsolete altogether.
Hypertext and digital self-publishing sites are changing the ways that we conceive of story and literature. With each new reconfiguration, I hope that we can move toward dismantling the ethnocentric hierarchies surrounding orality and literacy.
Works Cited
Klink, Flourish. “Towards a Definition of “Fanfiction”.” Fansplaining. Fansplaining, 30 May 2017. Web. 26 Jan. 2021.
Ong, Walter J.. Orality and Literacy : 30th Anniversary Edition, Taylor & Francis Group, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ubc/detail.action?docID=1092747.
“Short Summary: Death of the Author – Roland Barthes.” Short Summary: Death of the Author – Roland Barthes. 06 Feb. 2017. Web. 08 Mar. 2021.
Somers, James. “Torching the Modern-Day Library of Alexandria.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 27 Apr. 2017. Web. 26 Jan. 2021.
Hello Victoria,
It was wonderful reading your post! I had so many thoughts while reading, and tried to narrow it down to a few comments.
Your statement “through something like hypertext, […] [t]he author bestows some of their authorial power on readers” is a wonderful description of the power of the hyperlink. Within a text (whether written or oral) both the listener and story-teller have a role to play. In my opionin, similar to an artist the author is presenting an idea – a truth and untruth, as Chamberlin may say. This art, or text, being produced depends upon the audience’s perception: as unique individuals, a single story may be interpreted in any number of ways. The hyperlink re-defines the role of both teller and audience: there is more interaction, more sharing. The hyperlink allows the teller to add more of their personality, allowing for the author’s intention to be more easily accesible to the audience.
In regards to your comment on the tradition oral-written hierarcy, what I connected to was the idea of the “babbler”, or ‘Them’. Chamberlin writes that when the settlers arrived, since the First Peoples had “no written literature” (~page 3) they were not as civilized. Now, centuries later, oral traditions are becoming more prevalent. Within the world of education (K-12) there is a lot of emphasis on multiple intelligences, and adapting assignments to meet students need. For example, rather than writing an essay, teachers could allow students to present their learning in a speach. Rather than reading a novel, students can listen to an audiobook. As an example, my husband tends to retain more when listening than when reading. With this shift, is oral language our future? Will we see a shift more towards this type of storytelling?
Hi Samantha, thanks so much for your kind words, and the great additions to my post about hypertext! I was absolutely thinking of what Chamberlain wrote about babblers when I spoke of this hierarchy. Related to your quote, I’m reminded of another quote from Chamberlain, where he says that organizing orality and literacy in a hierarchy “encourages people to treat other societies with a blend of condescension and contempt while celebrating the sophistication of their own” (Chamberlain 19). However, as those that uphold this hierarchy begin to shift towards more oral forms of communication, it will (hopefully) become obsolete.
I love your connection to different ways of learning; I love to hear that it is the case that education is starting to make more room for different kinds of learning. I think that this is a sign that society is starting to slowly reconsider this hierarchy, as it makes room for oral/aural learning instead of insisting that children learn only through written/textual methods, as it was when I was in elementary school.
This is kind of a partial answer to your question. Based on the trends that we have been seeing with digital mediation, it does seem like we may move closer and closer to orality in the future. As you point out, audiobooks are quickly becoming a favoured way of reading, and the explosion of podcasts in recent years also points to this. However, it doesn’t seem to me that we will ever completely lose our literate roots; instead, I think that we will see some mix of the two, a mix that will hopefully allow us to realize the folly of the literate/oral binary.
Thank you for the comment!
Hi Victoria!
I find your interpretation of the influence that social media has had in the construction and spread of story really interesting. As I was writing my own response it hadn’t even occurred to me to mention the ways in which ACTUAL STORIES are actively being written, shared, and received online. Fanfiction is such a natural takeoff point for this discussion.
On the one hand, Fanfics are such a prime example of how a story evolves with retellings in different contexts, for different purposes, with different people, etc. On the other hand, Fanfics are also an excellent example of how colonial power structures interfere with creative works (especially those from whom the power structures do not benefit). I have also been thinking about the copyright world of fan fiction lately, and have been aware of issues with copyright online for a while more. In some ways, I recognize the concerns that some authors might have with losing their power over their works. If you have poured a piece of your soul into something, it is perhaps difficult to accept that you cannot own that thing anymore — regardless of how it has come to make you feel. I can also imagine why for someone like JKRowling — who has created not just some book series, but a juggernaut of a trademark — might not just want to protect her work, but continue to have creative control over it well after her last book had been completed, especially because she was able to make her billions of dollars by ensuring creative control. There is no doubt why she believes that she continues to have control over what her stories mean to this day, over a decade after the last book was written.
However, I am a firm believer that the author of a written work ceases to have any power over a story once it has left them. This is not to say that the publishing company owns it, or the editors, or the agents, or Google, or any of that. When the author releases a story into the world to be consumed by others, it belongs to the people who have experienced it by reading through the pages, and living the lives of the characters. Stories do not belong to the people who write them, they belong to the people who make something out of them.
Hi Zac,
I am really glad you brought up copyright issues with fanfiction! I wanted to speak more about it in my blog post, but I was unsure if it really had a place. However, you’re right. I do understand why creators would want to retain control over their works, and why they may try to copyright claim certain fanfiction stories in an attempt to keep this control. However, as this New Yorker article points out (I will link it for you at the end of my comment, if you are interested), the internet is simply too vast for authors and lawyers to copyright claim every single fanfiction. Additionally, there is the potential for creators to claim fair use, so it is not even certain that these lawsuits would actually be fruitful. Therefore, I wholeheartedly agree with you; as an author, once you release your work into the world, it is no longer yours, aside from your name on the dust jacket. In fact, if someone liked my work enough that they made fanfiction, I would consider myself flattered rather than try to sue them!
That being said, though, I would add as a post script that this does not apply to things like Real Person Fiction (RPFs), which, although technically under the umbrella of fanfiction, can have very harmful, real world consequences. This is just another example of the double-edged sword that is self-publishing sites.
Thanks for your comment!
https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-promise-and-potential-of-fan-fiction
Hi Victoria. This is an impressively well-thought-out examination of digital literacy and the breakdown of clear distinctions between oral and written cultures in the Internet age. You write of “certain social media tools” that you find break down the “hirearchy” of literacy above orality. I would like to propose another – streaming. With platforms like Twitch comes an even more complex and hierarchy-destroying form of communication. Just as with the story-time Youtube you write of, there is a clear disconnect between audience members – and yet, through the chatboxes of online streaming services, there is a unity between them, and individuals are able to communicate instantaneously. So Ong’s notion of the isolationary nature of writing is subverted here, because it is in fact the writing of the chat, through the language of textese, that the audience finds unity.
And unlike story-time YouTube, there is no clear disconnect between speaker and audience – the speaker is live, engaging in synchronous communication with their fans. Audience members may even choose to enact a dialogue with the speaker through the chatbox. And what becomes of the idea of “permanency”? Written culture has long thought to be more “permanent” that its oral counterpart – and yet online streaming renders sound impermanent (to a degree).
Here’s a link to an interesting look at “Twitch literacies” by Hannah Gerber, where she writes how gamers are “no longer considered lonely individuals playing video games in their parents’ basement,” but are instead an increasingly diverse online community. https://ila-onlinelibrary-wiley-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/doi/full/10.1002/jaal.692
Hi Leo,
Thank you fo the kind words! I absolutely agree with you (and Aidan) that streaming is a really interesting example of this new phenomenon that I’ve posited in my blog post. The live component certainly connects the audience in real time, but, as you point out, it is the text that unifies, contrary to Ong’s hypothesis about writing being a fracturing medium. Things like Twitch and Discord are really interesting because it has most of the aspects of a live, oral story tradition (impermanent [unless it is recorded], instantaneous, connected audience) EXCEPT for the physical embodiment of a space. The virtual space (if we can call it a physical space) is not actually occupied by any embodied people. So even though we can get people’s reactions (those little emojis you can use to react) and comments in real-time, the aspect of physical presence is negligible. I’m honestly not really sure where I’m going with this, but I think this idea of physicality and sensuality that was once thought to be an essential part of oral culture is starting to fall away as we find more and more digital ways of communicating with each other in the vast cyberspace.
Finally, thank you so much for this link. This is fascinating as the stereotype of a gamer continues to be someone who is antisocial and lonely, even when there are so many opportunities to connect with real people via video games. Perhaps, to tie this back to my thinking about physicality, our technological generation is starting to care less about physical embodiment? Just a thought!
Thanks for you comment, Leo. It really broadened my thinking, and I appreciate that!
Hi Victoria,
I really enjoyed your response to this assignment. I found myself taking breaks from reading to think about what you said on topics like “fanfic” for example, and how readers are able to morph and reshape the storylines, taking them upon themselves to veto any unwanted aspects, and adding things to make the story more to their liking. This has a big effect on the power of the original author, as readers have a sense of free reign over their original creation. Being quite unfamiliar with “fanfic” I hadn’t thought about this before, very interesting! And also, your comment on the views of Walter Ong we’re compelling; audience members become unified as the speaker addresses them, whereas “writing and print isolate.” Tying this in with the Youtube Medium not conforming to either of the previously mentioned facts was very intriguing! The Youtuber speaking directly into a camera resulting in a broken unity of the audience, so true!
Something I thought of while reading this post was the growing popularity of Video Game Streamers. They are filming themselves playing video games and speaking into the camera and engaging with people watching the stream. The viewers on the other hand, are only able to communicate and interact back with the streamer using the written chat. Kind of interesting to think about regarding “orality, literacy, and digital media” I think!
Hi Aidan,
I think you are totally right about streaming being a crucial part of deconstructing this hierarchy. I talk a little bit more on thoughts about this in my response to Leo’s comment, if you’re curious about my thoughts, but I will also add that when it comes to streamers, especially really popular ones, the interaction is kind of one way. Even though we as viewers can all leave comments, it is likely that they are receiving hundreds of comments per minute, and thus it is physically impossible for them to read them and respond to them all while still managing to play a video game. I think this is an interesting aspect that we should also consider when we think about how to categorize streamers; while an oral story-teller would likely be able to interact with their whole audience, or at least see all of their facial expressions, this is not the case with streaming.
Thank you so much for comment!!
Shoot, I just noticed that Leo brought up streaming earlier in his comment right after posted mine, oops.
Haha, don’t worry, it’s a very valid point that should be brought up twice!
Hi Victoria,
I really enjoyed reading your post! My mother specialized in copyright law for a while, so thinking about hypertext through the lens of Project Ocean especially resonated with me. While on the subject of copyright, I think both you and Zac made excellent points regarding the complicated relationship between copyright and fanfiction! I must admit that reading far too much fanfiction is a guilty pleasure of mine, so seeing it referenced here as both a platform that levels the playing field and an example of how stories can evolve through the role of the reader was fascinating. I do agree that it is indubitably a double-edged sword; as we’ve seen from recent political events in the US, for example, ready access to stories, “true” or not, that confirm your world view while excluding others can have devastating consequences. You mentioned that hypertext allows readers to be selective about what they click on, while also encouraging fact checking; to me, this is another example of the complex relationship between author and reader.
I absolutely loved your point about story-time YouTube videos as an example of how new digital forms of storytelling are breaking down the distinctions between traditional boundaries. Written and spoken text are now on equal footing when it comes to recording and distribution; it seems to me that this is a hopeful step in the direction of viewing written and spoken text on an equal footing in other aspects. Would you agree?
Hi Magdalena,
That’s really awesome to hear! Copyright issues are really interesting to me because I also want to go to law school. I also appreciate that you bring up “fake news” – I don’t consider this in my post, but this is absolutely a specific instance of platforms perpetuating hatemongering. In fact, the recent insurrection at the White House was very much influenced by social media.
As for your question, I do certainly hope that deconstructing this hierarchies by hybridizing these mediums means that we can start to see them on equal footing. We are certainly on our way to making progress about this. However, I would speculate that this oral/literacy hierarchy in not actually rooted in use of medium itself, but in xenophobia and racism. Thus, if we insist on perpetuating these, it seems that we might find other ways to belittle other cultures, perhaps reconstructing this mediatic hierarchy in a way that still subordinates them. I hope this is not the case and that I am being overly-cynical, but it seems that if we ever really want to see them on equal footing, we have to tackle the bigger problems as well.
Thanks so much for your comment!!