Issues Surrounding Electronic Literature, Digital and Multimedia Literacy, and Digital Humanities, to Begin…

When I took the course “Electric English,” I had to write a final narrative about my experiences and my conclusions, “Running the Digital Forest.” I concluded:

Digital literature may employ different techniques, drawing from the established genres of poetry, prose, and film to form a new genre, but it meets the essential criteria for literature, using language in a powerful way, providing a vicarious, meaningful experience with enough ambiguity to allow for multiple interpretations, and shedding light on truths we may or may not want to see.

It seemed that digital forms of literature were taking advantage of the computer age to integrate the message and the medium in exciting new ways, and yet, as I searched for more new, exciting examples of this, I found myself somewhat stuck: why was there still so little for me to explore? Certainly, the fact that digital literature is different from the “traditional” literature of ink and paper makes it difficult for people to understand, let alone study without a common vocabulary, but as I began my search again, that “roadblock” alone didn’t seem sufficient, so I began to ask myself what other issues surround the widespread acknowledgement and acceptance of electronic literature?

First of all, there are many answers to the question of what electronic text is; in many of the sites I found under my first searchings of “digital humanities,” electronic text seemed to mean merely an electronic transcription of a literary text or text put online for collaborative purposes or for keyword or contextual searching. The Official Google Blog’s statement of commitment to digital humanities refers solely to the digitization of books and the NEH Office of Digital Humanities, in its Why the Digital Humanities, emphasizes the use of technology-based tools and methodologies and collaborative, interdisciplinary work in the humanities. Much under “digital humanities” seems to focus on digitizing what was once or would be considered “print,” and although sites like A Companion to Digital Humanities, acknowledge the existence of “hypertext”:

A very different category is hypertext. Works of this type are generally original and not representations of previously published works. Hypertext would seem to have great potential for expression, allowing for a multiplicity of narrative choices and making the reader an active participant in the reading experience. Hypertextual content is generally bound inextricably with hypertext software, making productions in this format even more ephemeral than other kinds of electronic text. Some hypertext authors, such as Michael Joyce and Stuart Mouthrop, recognize the impermanence inherent in the genre and incorporate it into their hyperfictions, but this fundamental aspect of its nature will make it difficult or impossible for libraries to collect hyperfictions for the long term. Eventually, even if the medium on which the hypertext is stored remains viable, the software on which it relies will no longer run. While early critics such as Robert Coover believed (with some hope) that hypertext would lead to "the end of books", others, such as Tim Parks, dismiss the genre as "hype."

In this same chapter “Electronic Texts: Audiences and Purposes,” Perry Willett discusses another reason that scholars may dismiss electronic texts in all their forms: copyright.

The effect of copyright means that researchers and students interested in twentieth-century and contemporary writing are largely prevented from using electronic text. A quick check of the online MLA Bibliography shows the number of articles published after 1962 dealing with twentieth-century authors is nearly double that of all other centuries combined, covering 1200–1900 ce. With the majority of researchers and students interested in writers and their work after 1900, it is no wonder that they may consider electronic text largely irrelevant to their studies.

On the same site, in the chapter “Multivariant Narratives,” Marie-Laure Ryan defines a truly digital text as one “that cannot be transferred into the print medium without significant loss. It depends on the computer as a sustaining environment, and it uses the screen (or any other display device) as a stage for performance.” She then goes on to determine certain properties of digital media and digital text, citing new media theorists (Murray 1997; Manovich 2001) as sources for her list, which she calls “a distillation of the features I regard as the most relevant to the issues of textuality and narrativity”:
• “Algorithm-driven operation.” (The invisible code of the machine language determines the behavior of digital objects such as text and images.)
• “Reactive and interactive nature.” (The ability to react to changes in environment and actions and to interact with deliberate user action.)
• “Performantial aspect.” (Since the digital text is executed like a script and its reception depends on feedback from the user, it is like a performance in nature.)
• “Multiple sensory and semiotic channels, or what we may call multimedia capabilities, if we are not afraid of the apparent paradox of talking about multimedia media. Digital environments can combine text, sound, still pictures, and animations.”
• “Networking capabilities.” (Brining people and machines together, allowing the possibility of multiple users and communication.)
• “Volatile signs.” (Digital texts are fluid, able to be refreshed and rewritten.)
• “Modularity.” (The independent objects combined to create digital works can be transformed, recombined, and reinterpreted during the course of the work.)

While these abilities, she argues, allow for the creation of a vast number of versions, with variable plot, point of view, and discourse, she concludes by echoing the sentiment that:

While computer games have taken popular culture by storm, generating a billion-dollar industry that rivals Hollywood and Disneyland, hypertext is an arcane academic genre read mostly by theorists and prospective authors. What remains to be conquered for digital textuality is the territory that lies between the stereotyped narrative scripts of popular culture and the militant anti-narrativity of so many experimental texts: a territory where narrative form is neither frozen nor ostracized, but recognized as an endlessly productive source of knowledge and aesthetic experiences.

This too sheds light on the issue of accessibility (not in the literal sense, although I will talk about that later) to a broader audience. The novel was once dismissed by fans of epic poetry as a crude form of writing for lesser minds, but became the preeminent form of literature in the last few hundred years because of its popularity. Thus, Ryan argues:
For digital texts to establish themselves within the cultural middle ground – the narratives of the educated but not professional public – they must do the opposite of what the twentieth-century novel achieved, and perhaps learn a lesson from computer games, without succumbing to their propensity for repetitive themes and stereotyped storylines: naturally spatial, these texts must reconquer the narrative temporality that fuels the reader's desire.

Another impediment to the understanding and acceptance of electronic literature may also be its physical accessibility. While critics have worried that changes in software may make it impossible for such literature to be preserved, organizations like the Electronic Literature Organization or ELO have been working to make sure these works persist. Just as epics made the transition from oral tales to stone, papyrus, and print, so too might these works with the will to preserve them. So, what keeps these works on the periphery? In his article in Digital Humanities Quarterly, “Communitizing Electronic Literature,” Scott Rettberg indicated that part of the reason is the lack of a common marketplace:

Many writers who had authored hypertext work in the Storyspace platform were frustrated that their work, published by Eastgate Systems, had not reached a wide audience. There was a also sense that the mess and clamor of the World Wide Web were drowning these literary efforts for the computer in a sea of commercial noise, and that the platform they were working in was becoming obsolescent.

Indeed, while one can easily go to a physical or online bookstore to purchase a print novel (or e-book version), the collections where one can find truly digital literature are more obscure. Also, because much electronic literature is published on the internet, it is distributed largely for free and must then overcome the old notions that nothing worth anything is free.

At this point in the history of electronic literature, the question is not how we can monetize it, in the sense of getting people to pay money for things, but rather how we can communitize it. We don’t need to build a market for electronic literature, but rather a culture that will support and sustain its development.

In addition, he points out that:

While use of the Internet has become an important part of everyday life in many parts of the world, most people have no idea that electronic literature exists, or at best, have heard of "e-books" and think that by electronic literature we mean print books distributed as PDFs or some other electronic format.

Furthermore, to access and understand these works, users need to have a certain degree of multimedia literacy, defined by StateUniversity.com Education Encyclopedia as literacy that

extends beyond reading and writing the alphabetic code, and should include a variety of audiovisual forms of representation. Associating multimedia with literacy also highlights a belief among many scholars and educators that conceptions of literacy and how it is developed should not focus exclusively on printed materials, but should include electronic media that have moved into the mainstream of communication, especially at the end of the twentieth century. Implicit in these views is that research and practice related to literacy must be transformed to accommodate new ways of accessing, processing, and using information.

In his article in Digital Humanities Quarterly, “Communitizing Electronic Literature,” Scott Rettberg also grapples with this issue, discussing the United States National Endowment for the Arts reports in 2004 and 2007, "Reading at Risk" and "To Read or Not to Read," which are generally skeptical of the benefits of digital textuality, and in fact rather slyly imply that the computer might well be the culprit behind the downfall of literary reading. Rettberg suggests:

While the methodology of the study and the conclusions one can draw from it are themselves disputable, if we accept the NEA’s claim that literary reading is in decline, and that the current generation of teenagers is the first of what the Kaiser Foundation has labeled "Generation M" (for Media) [Kaiser Family Foundation], then it seems to me that the culture at large ought to be concerned not with blaming the Internet for the decline of literary reading, but rather with finding a way to better utilize the networked computer to further literary reading.

He points to N. Katherine Hayles’s discussion of the current generation’s use of “hyper attention” over “deep attention” as a reason for the promotion of digital literature, which has the possibility to encouraging both types of cognitive processes:

In order for literature to appeal to Generation M, it may need to be produced in forms that can capture the interactive, multimodal, and fragmented interests of hyper attention, and yet also provide opportunities for deeply attentive and immersive close reading.

He continues, pointing out that with new technologies, newer generations are growing more “literate” in terms of multimedia and “hyper attentive” texts, but may be missing out on the opportunities and will to experience texts that require deep attention and interpretation:

Right now, the Internet is still primarily a textual medium. At the same time as the NEA is decrying the death of American reading, it is not taking into proper account the hyperattentive forms of digital textuality which have become part of the routine daily lives of people in most economically developed nations: reading and writing email, sending and receiving text messages, participating in online social networks, and so on. […] The important open question is what forms of literature will appeal to readers for whom the hyper attention is the primary textual mode, who are more likely to "read" machinima, YouTube videos, and Flash games than they are to read anything remotely recognizable as poetry or fiction. I argue that many works of electronic literature can appeal to the configurative desires and cognitive behaviors of Generation M and yet also make the type of contemplative and interpretive demands we have historically associated with literary reading. I can think of no literary medium more suited to straddling the divide between hyper attention and deep attention than electronic literature, and I’m frankly surprised that the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and other funders are not yet furiously writing grants to support and further the development of e-lit.

I hesitate to claim that the popular adoption of electronic literature is inevitable – it is equally likely that literary reading of all sorts will continue to decline. I am certain, however, that if writers don’t continue to experiment with digital literary forms on a more widespread basis as the broadband Internet becomes less textual and more dominated by video and other communicative modalities, the written word will lose out. Within academe, within reading and writing communities, within library and archival culture, it is important to recognize that we are participating in the formation of a field. The decisions we collectively make now about what sorts of digital artifacts we should describe as electronic literature, how to document, distribute, archive and preserve, assess, and critique those works, how to encourage audiences to read them both critically and recreationally, and how to encourage writers to create more of them, will have an important impact in years to come.

I think these questions and this new frontier for literature are interesting, but exhausting; how can writers be encouraged to write more electronic literature? Could the future of electronic literature be the collaborative novel? Already there have been many attempts to use wikis and social networking sites to create fiction, but the appreciation seems to stem from the process of creation, rather than that of interpretation. (The Comedy Central show Tosh.O’s “Twitten By” video shows the hilarious possible consequences of letting the reader take part in the authoring process via social media tools like Twitter, and there have been.) Could electronic literature be more widely read with more intervention from educational institutions? From increased exposure to it in their youth? I know that after showing some examples to students in a digital media class I guest attended, I had students coming up to me for weeks afterward wondering where they could see more, and wishing that there could be a class on it.

What are the possibilities of and for electronic literature? Much of this depends on its gaining widespread appeal, acceptance, and understanding. First and foremost, to interpret this literature on a deeper level, one has to be able to understand how it works. Just as a traditional print novel has structures, so too does electronic literature, and yet part of the structures of electronic literature remain hidden. Much in the spirit of those of the free open source software movement and the Creative Commons movement, electronic writers like Jason Nelson (netpoetic.com) are releasing the codes for and explanations of how they created their work so that it cannot only be better understood, but also encourage writers to produce similar electronic writing. Scott Rettberg points out that, “In the absence of more formal institutional avenues for the education of new digital poets, these types of efforts will help to give writers with limited computation literacy the tools and educational resources they need to begin creating new electronic writing.”

What other questions and possibilities are out there for electronic and digital literature? That is what I hope to find out.