C-7. Digital Narrative. Literature and Literatures in the digital society. New ways of communication, new ways of creation

Keywords:

Coordination:

WGs key questions and issues:

Central questions: Literature in the digital society, the digital communication of non-digital Literature and the creation of digital Literature.

1. Is digital Literature a new Literature, different from non-digital Literature?
2. How do new technologies influence literary communication and literary creation?
3. What is the function of readers in with respect to Literature in the digital society?
4. How is the author’s conscience configured in digital Literature?
5. How to consider or to reframe the copyright in the digital society?
6. Are literary genres reformulated in the creation of digital Literature?
7. What makes of digital narrative something exclusive of electronic media?
8. What makes of this type of reading something attractive to the reading public?
9. Why is narrative important?

Working Group Description:

The emergence of new information technologies has given us instruments of extraordinary power for the organization and communication of information. Literature, as a human activity that operates with language and experience, has not remained untouched by such instruments. The idea of “Literature” and “Literatures” (singular, plural) has to do with the conception of LITERATURE as a set, and with the possibility of distinguishing non-digital Literature from digital Literature, both forming part of LITERATURE.

On the one hand, Literature created before the arrival of the digital technology, as well as the one that, being contemporary to this technology, does not use it as for its production and its initial communication, have been affected by these instruments. These technologies provide an important support for the diffusion, archiving, edition, reading, consultation, analysis, transformation into interactive speech, and even for commercialization of Literature. New technologies allow communication, exhaustive study, examination of variants of one single work, connections between works, etc. of the Literature that has been produced either outside the Internet or without having Internet in mind. Related to this are the virtual libraries, in which the literary works produced for non-digital media, find an avenue for diffusion, consultation, reading, and study as never before. On the other hand, new technologies in the digital society have allowed the appereance of a Literature exclusively communicated by digital media. It is the case of literary works that have been published only in Internet, but that could have been published in paper; next to these are the interactive, hypertextual and blogospheric literary works, as well as the works holographically constructed as virtual reality, which depend upon digital technology.

The relationship between Literature and digital communicative technology is connected with the open character of knowledge in the present society and with the freedom of social communication.

The possibilities of communication and knowledge of Literature created without digital media and the possibilities of creation of Literature with digital media represent a qualitative jump in the configuration of Literature from all points of view They have to do with the author instance, the reading instance, the context, the channel, the referent and the code, in addition to the speech, or textual and hypertextual construction, as components of the literary fact. Also, the new technologies even offer an important tool for the study of Literature and for the analysis of literary studies themselves, result of which is, for example, the existence of sites or Web pages of authors, movements of literary creation, theory and literary criticism, and compared Literature. All this makes us ask ourselves, from a digital perspective, about the literary production, the multimedial reception, the reading and the literary interpretation, the copyright, new edition forms, the renovation of the publishing industry, new configurations of the literary work, access to Literature, the social function of Literature in the society, etc.

The fundamental attributes of digital narrative have been, so far, mostly faithful to the origin of electronic text: a set of linked episodes that contain hypermedia elements. Whether or not some features could be reproduced in printed media has been subject of debate by opponents and proponents of digital narratives. However, as the electronic media evolves, some features truly unique to digital narrative have appeared. These changes have not only redefined the concepts of reader and author, but also created new elements in the reading and authoring processes. The necessary question is: How is the writing of digital narrative evolving? It is equally important to ask us about the readers: How is reading of works designed to be read in electronic means evolving?

Digital literacy appears like one of the great challenges in this field, both for the authors and for the readers. Acceptance of the digital narrative depends to a great extent on authors being able to produce works that are attractive for their aesthetic value, ethical, cognitive or entertainment value. Also, it is required that the readers are familiarized with the reading channels so that they are able to use digital works. How to attain these two interdependent goals? What experiences have authors and readers had? What theories have been elaborated and/or left around the digital narrative?

The objectives of this work group are:

• To contribute to the creation of a space of encounter, interchange and debate about Literature in the knowledge society. Not only about the literary works created aside new technologies but that use it for their diffusion, but also about those works that are exclusively digital.
• To promote a dynamic cooperation between the poetic-rhetorical reflection on the Literature and the digital explanation of the literary communication.
• To contribute to this space of encounter, interchange and debates the experience of C [PyR] Communication, Poetic and Rhetorical, Literatrónica.com, WRT Writer Response Theory, Pontifical Javeriana University of Bogota and Desequilibros.com