Morphing Technologies, Changing Literacies: The Reshaping of Narrative in a Digital World

The widespread use of information and communications technologies (icts) and the associated merging of computer and telephone networks means that the content and appearance of written texts is changing. The literacy practices of reading, writing, and publishing are exhibiting significant adaptations in response to such changes. This article explores these issues, examining the extent to which icts are affecting storyworlds. As part of this discussion, I investigate the ways in which technological and cultural developments are pushing narrative into a process-oriented space where meaning becomes less of a stable, final product and authors, readers, and publishers are increasingly positioned to jointly create meaning. I also examine how such developments are dissolving some of the constraints that have congealed around the technology of print, opening the field of storytelling to innovative experimentation.

Having moved beyond the printed page, printed books and other texts can now be read on a wide range of electronic platforms, from personal computers to e-readers and smartphones. Systems of media convergence—whereby different mediums and communication modes can be accessed on a single platform—both reflect and fuel changing literacy practices. Electronic platforms are intrinsically flexible, meaning readers are spoiled for choice in terms of what material they can peruse and the sequence in which they read it. Today, interactive and digressive literacy patterns that entail nonlinear, browsing-oriented methods of reading, writing, and interpretation are the norm rather than the exception for technologically savvy audiences. icts, and the electronic realm in which they operate, have generated an increasingly avataristic readership, trained in the art of roaming networks of information. Reading is becoming more closely aligned with active browsing as readers interact with a user interface, switch between screens, and navigate fragmented textual structures. Ready access to other modes of communication, including audio and video, is also changing the way readers engage with texts. In short, conventions encountered in the electronic realm have ushered in a new age of digital literacy. It is important to note, however, that electronic reading and writing methods do not develop separately from those deployed in the printed realm; rather, they develop together, influencing and extending out from one another.

The publishing world is responding to changing reader expectations, working to produce texts in ways that will capture the attention of media-savvy audiences. Consider the Vook, an online and mobile application marketed by the American publisher Simon and Schuster. Integrated with the Internet and social-media outlets, the Vook reading experience has given rise to the hybrid book, which features a combination of text, audio, and video. This application highlights the reshaping of narrative by technological and cultural forces in contemporary society. As Catherine C. Marshall notes:

It is difficult to ignore the transitions that are taking place in reading practice across the board: novels are written and read on cell phones; blogs command huge online audiences … the energy in newspaper publishing is channeled toward electronic distribution and reader interactivity; and several generations of e-book hardware and software have come and gone.

(2009: 211)

It follows that icts are not only affecting reading and publishing practices but also changing how novels are written and designed. This has opened the way for authors to further experiment with the structure, form, and presentation of narrative. Given the common use of computers, texts can now be constructed according to digital codes and conventions, granting authors an unprecedented degree of choice as to how they manipulate language within a text. Authors working onscreen are able to experiment with space, page layout, and typographical design in ways that contribute to aesthetic effects and narrative meaning. Michele Anstey and Geoff Bull elaborate:

Authors must now be fluent in five semiotic systems (linguistic, visual, gestural, spatial and audio) and understand how they may be combined in different ways to achieve the desired outcome with the intended audience. … It is more appropriate to think of writing as production: producing a text may draw upon multiple modes, technologies and individuals.

(2010: 4)

icts require readers, writers, and publishers to understand the interplay of various digital...