The Literature of the Twittersphere: Issues of context and control in reading spaces on social media

Conference: Ambient Literature

Dates: 4-5 May 2017

Abstract:

My contribution will discuss how digital platforms make increasingly visible the contexts and ongoing processes of reading (and writing) literature, and allow for increased opportunities to participate and engage with those processes. At the same time, my talk will explore the extent to which readers in the digital age are seemingly faced with a loss of control: not only do they themselves become data for corporations interested in when, where and how texts are being read, but many digital literary works make it impossible to control the reading experience, which is unpredictable, unrepeatable and uncommunicable beyond the moment. With reference to the emerging genre of Twitterfiction, I will be asking whether social media already provides the possibility for a kind of ‘ambient literature’, particularly with regards to its reliance on pervasiveness and serendipity.

Source: Manual