Contemporary,

Popular and
Emergent
Literature

A Modular Approach with

Compendium of Readings

Prof. Marco D. Meduranda

Navotas Polytechnic College
 Module 10:
Literature and Social
Media

At the end of the week, the pre- service

teacher (PST) should be able to:

1. explain the importance and use of

social media in new and emerging forms
of literature;
2. identify various literary genre emerging
from social media platforms;
3. draw implications on the role of social
media in the new forms of literature in
21st century.

2
 General Instructions

This unit aims to deepen your understanding

various literary genre emerging from social
media platforms. This will allow you to draw
implications on the role of social media in the
new forms of literature in 21st century. The
assessment tasks at the end will allow you to
synthesize your understanding on contemporary
literature in social media platforms.

Connect with your teacher via the learning

management system created for this particular
course. If you have clarifications and questions,
contact him via his email:
[email protected] or through the
messenger chat of the class online learning
group.

Your success to this course lies in your hands.

Good luck!

MDM
 Assessment Tasks
Complete all of the following tasks:

Create a Powerpoint presentation that reports the role, use and importance of social
media in English language literature. Present also the various emerging literary forms in
social media sites.

4
 Assessment Tasks

Create a 200-250 word reflection about the article you read. Be guided by the rubric
below.

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Journal of Higher Education and Research Society: A Refereed International
ISSN 2349-0209 Volume-4 / Issue-2 OCTOBER 2016 JHERS

LITERATURE AND SOCIAL MEDIA: EFFECT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON

ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

D Pankaja
Assistant Professor
R.B.V.R.R.Woman‘s College,
Hyderabad, (A.P), India.

Abstract

Social Media is an agency by which something is conveyed or transferred. It basically began

from hand published newspapers and magazines. During the past few decades Media has
evolved from being Manuscripts, Papers to many distinct types which can be studied separately
from each other .Media can change our knowledge, behavior, attitude, emotions.

Keywords:- Media, Digital Age, Literature…

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Literature and Social Media: Effect of Social Media on
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LITERATURE AND SOCIAL MEDIA: EFFECT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON

ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

- D Pankaja

Introduction

S
ocial Media is an agency by which something is conveyed or transferred. It basically
began from hand published newspapers and magazines. During the past few decades
Media has evolved from being Manuscripts, Papers to many distinct types which can be
studied separately from each other .Media can change our knowledge, behavior, attitude,
emotions.

Importance of Media

Media plays an important role in Literature, Language and Society. In India78.8million

number of news papers sold daily.41,66, 438 number of magazines are sold. 665television
channels are there.65 million active internet users are there. Media has become an integral part of
our lives. There are social media sites for almost everything from books to movies to connect
with other people. These Websites often viewed as beneficial in an age where sharing thoughts
and ideas are important for innovations whether in Literature or Business. Social Media makes
communication convenient and effective. As a result many people use these different Websites
this enables the possibility of wide spread information quickly .Generally this seems positive
because it saves time. There are many social Media sites. A piece of Literature can spread virally
online because of social net working sites. There are many Websites that have free E-books.
Social Media functions are advancing as the digital age continues to grow and flourish .With
Social Media the concept of literature is rapidly changing and transforming traditional view of
Literature. Social Media although fairly new, is changing the way we think about writing and
Literature as a whole, because of the transition to the new age---Digital Age. People are starting

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Literature and Social Media: Effect of Social Media on
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ISSN 2349-0209 Volume-4 / Issue-2 OCTOBER 2016 JHERS
to express their creativity via Online Sources like Twitter, Blog, and Websites and Fan fiction
Pages.

New Media Theory

Under the influence of Media Literary content and form are influenced and Literature is
communicated very fast. Media is dependent on ‘‘Digital‘‘ than‘‘ Analog ‗‘technology. Digital
Technology uses a binary code to transmit or receive data, this data has been archived or
transmitted recomposed into a format suited to the needs of a user.

Use of Social Media in Literature

Literature is a highly dynamic sphere that reflects values social and cultural life. Social
media has become the space where new Literature arises and we are currently witnessing the rise
of new genre in the literature. It can be Social media fiction and can be defined as a genre of
literature transformed through various social networking services[SNS]and characterized by the
use of variety of tools such as tagging immediate interaction with audience and establishes
communication between readers and fictional characters. Social media sites have become parts
of our lives. They give an opportunity to fight injustice, build communities and influence the
world of literature.

Texts

Texts that appear in social networks as new forms and formats of online literature
constantly appear and old ones fade away. Social net work fiction could be classified as
Experimental Literature as it keeps with different formats to convey the message and it gets
immediate feedback from audience.

Blogging

Blogging fiction generally recognized as Literature. The reason for this is various online
Blogs are transforms into printed books [Miller and Shepherd, 2009] Blogs don‘t form a single
genre. In social networking, services deal with immediate contact with audience and tangled
system of mutual linking. The link and feed back from the audience in the form of likes, shares,

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ISSN 2349-0209 Volume-4 / Issue-2 OCTOBER 2016 JHERS
reposts, and their analogues in Instagram and Twitter which directly influence how the text is
perceived by others.

Literature that arises from the process of communication in social network has their focus
on the interaction and communication between author and audience where by direct and indirect
communication taken into account. Direct communication can be classified as interaction
between audience and author.

Indirect communication can be classified as the silent signs of reader‘s presence such as
likes, shares, followers, links etc. Both types of interactions are able to influence how the story
is being told ,the tone of the author and the comments following texts can be a part of literary
text itself. The distinguished feature in social media fiction is the absence of mediator between
author and audience

The First Twitter Novel

Nicholas Belardes made history by writing a novel on Twitter from 2008 to 2010.Now
he is embarking on his second social net work based book entitled ‗‘So long‘‘. When a Twitter or
Face book account are used by an author‘s agent to promote his or her work and the author
doesn‘t create a new content especially for the digital platforms, the audience immediately feels
that the page or account is fake.

The present paper is divided into four parts in Literary creation; Facebook, Instagram, Twitter
and YouTube

The precise formats proposed by these networks to express ‗what‘s on your mind ‗tweets
or to share. Illustrated stories induce creative thinking, when the space for artistic creation is
restricted the author has to dig deeper and find new solutions for the creation. The building
material for the social network will be the words, but the meaning of the words that are placed in
the social media frame and transforms into Literature. Who is able to classify the social network
posts, statuses as fiction, The answer is the ‗‘Author‘‘ .If the author presents his/her writings as
fiction it belongs to Literature. It can be good or bad literature but it is a literary creation .For
example on Twitter authors can identify their writings as literature by tagging with certain hash
tags #vss[very short story] ,# Friday flash, #webfic, # web lit, #wrote today, #story craft and

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Literature and Social Media: Effect of Social Media on
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ISSN 2349-0209 Volume-4 / Issue-2 OCTOBER 2016 JHERS
many more. The formation of such infra structure for twitter fiction is more evidence of the true
nature of literary creations that emerge on twitter.

Literary Texts of Twitter

From micro fiction to online performances, Twitter fiction has many forms such as Micro
fiction and collection of tweet blocks are online art of storytelling and creation of literary
characters.[Fitzgerald,2013]Twitter Micro fiction was the first format of literary creation on
Twitter. He defines Twitter as a new wide opened digital frontier of storytelling and
experimentation. The authors convey the messages through texts and evoke reader‘s emotions
.Other form of literary expression on twitter is serial of tweets that afterwards transforms into
short story but broken into twitter blocks. The popular story is ‗‘Black box ‗science fiction short
story by Pulitzer prize winning American writer Jennifer Egan published in New York
magazine in May 2012.The story was released in a Twitter format as a series of tweets every
night at 8 pm. Other approach is Author often divides the text into chapters to write the direct
speech of different characters. This type of storytelling can be considered as Twitter Drama.
Several authors work together creating a single story. This is called ‗‘Collaborative fiction‘.

Facebook- The creative use has less literary text. Face book has more technical possibilities than
traditional blogging sites such as live journal.com, word press.com. Many authors interact with
readers through tweets and blog spots.

Instagram: It is a platform for social media fiction with many possibilities for tagging, linking
and communicating. Many examples of short stories with most thought provoking sub genre on
Instagram is Flash Fiction.

Fan fiction– A phenomenon which is on rise in social media and online posting, The notion of
Fan fiction gives un experienced writers a chance to express their creativity such as stories
around characters, settings, plots or review on their favorite shows, books, movies.

Parody Twitter Account

These are crowd sourced Novels- the latest accounts, people collaborate on books ,but a novel
written by hundreds of people could be awesome or disaster waiting to happen.

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You Tube

Today You Tube is the largest online Social media Website in the world. The site
exceeds two billion views a day. This is a good platform for sharing and posting literary articles.
It provides a forum for people to connect, inform and inspire across the globe

Literature and Language

English as Lingua franca or the international language has a [historical background]

significance especially in the field of Academic writing and Literature. Fiction and Poetry are
very intimate forms of communication. Populations that are difficult to reach via traditional
media can be targeted and effectively reached via social media. Web2.0-Story telling- -There are
two essential features that are useful for projects and platforms for Literature.

The role of English Language today has become a matter of grave concern yo watch the
de-authentication and gross permutation that English language has been undergoing in the field
of social net working.

The Impact of Social Media on English Language and Literature

With the development of most powerful mass media and large scale organizations-mass
culture or popular culture developed. This culture depicts things like gossip magazines, some TV
channels. Popular culture directly affects and changes English language what is called‘‘ dumb
ling down.‘‘ Wikipedia –defines it as deliberate diminishment of the intellectual level of content
of schooling and education. The process involves an over simplification of thought and
Literature.Since World War II English language became the official and co-official language in
53 countries.

David Gradol‘[1997] classifies English language speakers into three types

Those who speak as first language; those who speak as second language; Those who speak as
Foreign language.

David Crystal in his famous publication Texting; the Gr8 Db8[2008] said,

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ISSN 2349-0209 Volume-4 / Issue-2 OCTOBER 2016 JHERS
Text messages aren‘t full of abbreviations- less than 10% words are used.

They aren‘t just used by kids, adults of all ages and institutions are using these days.

With the arrival of free social networking sites like face book, Twitter and WhatsApp on
the social media messaging and micro blogging constantly give rise to newer and silliest of
abbreviations, truncated spellings in English language. Historically languages evolve steadily
with the passage of time .Online technology becoming a driving force of rapid creation and
proliferation of new words. We are increasingly changing nouns and adjectives to verbs. The
speed at which such changes in the language are occurring rises to a question; ‗‘How different
will English language be in the next 15 years?‘‘

Conclusion

The recent development of social media—Literature proves that Social media fiction is a
self sufficient genre of literary creation social media fiction belongs to literary process. But
Social media is effective for sharing information and even as a way to publish without going
through the process It does create lot of problems and issues such as ‗‘Plagiarism‘‘. It is hard to
monitor these Web Sites as there are so many of them for different purposes. Social media may
be the next step in the world of Literature in which people can share faster and to a broader
audience, but many critics oppose to the new move.

Works Cited :

Graddol, David. The Future of English?: A Guide to Forecasting the Popularity of English
Language in the 21st Century. London: The British Council, 2000. Digital.

Raymond, Williams. Culture and Society 1780-1950. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977.Print.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/Dumbing_down

Max Horkheimer and TheodorW.Adorno. Dialectics of Enlightenment trans. John Cumming.

New York: Continuum, 2001. Print

Crystal, David. DC blog ―On texting reactions http://david-crystal.blogspot.in/

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Brown, Alex. ―OMG! The Impact of Social Media on English Language‖
http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2012/08/28/omg-the-impact-of-social-media-on-
the-english -language.

Bloxhamy Andy, Social Networking: Teachers blame Facebook and Twitter for pupil‘s poor
brains. The Telegraph, 2016.

Windels, Joel- Research shows Twitter is driving English language evolution Brand watch.
Brandwatch. N. P. December, 2013.

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