technology: the new printing press
In my last post, "technology: the old printing press," I discussed the impact of the printing press on culture as well as its limitations. So now I'd like to turn to a new revolution in printing technology.
With the Internet, there's no publisher needed. Originally all you needed was some knowledge of HTML and somewhere to host your content. Now all you need is a LiveJournal account, or a Facebook account, or...and the ability to click a few buttons. And type. That's it. Your writing is out there for all to see, and you didn't even need to write a proposal.
Now, I'm not claiming this is new thinking. The internet as a printing press revolution surely is an idea nearly as hoary as the original printing presses themselves. But I'd like to take it a step further and say: what are we producing with this technology? Isn't it literature too? And in fact, isn't it the heart of literature today?
With the advent of the internet, publishing has become decentralized. Instead of publication being squeezed through the narrow system of publishing houses, publication flourishes freely wherever there's a keyboard and an Internet connection. Publication is no longer just the printing press, it's a laptop, a desktop, a cell phone. It's no longer sequestered in giant printing facilities, it's in a dorm room, a library, a coffee shop.
And so I would like to argue that literature too is decentralized. Let's return to our original definition of national literature: "the collection of texts which make it a whole nation." Once upon a time, a handful of the texts coming out of publishing houses did comprise the texts that make a nation, representative of the national consciousness, perhaps because those were the only texts we really had. But now with so much writing out for the world to see but outside the framework of publishing houses, can we really limit ourselves? Why discount all that just because it's not what literature used to be?
We shouldn't. The literature produced by technology is literature too, and that's why I'm here.
With the Internet, there's no publisher needed. Originally all you needed was some knowledge of HTML and somewhere to host your content. Now all you need is a LiveJournal account, or a Facebook account, or...and the ability to click a few buttons. And type. That's it. Your writing is out there for all to see, and you didn't even need to write a proposal.
Now, I'm not claiming this is new thinking. The internet as a printing press revolution surely is an idea nearly as hoary as the original printing presses themselves. But I'd like to take it a step further and say: what are we producing with this technology? Isn't it literature too? And in fact, isn't it the heart of literature today?
With the advent of the internet, publishing has become decentralized. Instead of publication being squeezed through the narrow system of publishing houses, publication flourishes freely wherever there's a keyboard and an Internet connection. Publication is no longer just the printing press, it's a laptop, a desktop, a cell phone. It's no longer sequestered in giant printing facilities, it's in a dorm room, a library, a coffee shop.
And so I would like to argue that literature too is decentralized. Let's return to our original definition of national literature: "the collection of texts which make it a whole nation." Once upon a time, a handful of the texts coming out of publishing houses did comprise the texts that make a nation, representative of the national consciousness, perhaps because those were the only texts we really had. But now with so much writing out for the world to see but outside the framework of publishing houses, can we really limit ourselves? Why discount all that just because it's not what literature used to be?
We shouldn't. The literature produced by technology is literature too, and that's why I'm here.
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