Week 7: What is network writing?

             This chapter explores network writing, which is a broad category that refers to online literature that "emphasizes how video, audio, images, and other multimodal media increasingly compete for our attention." These works contain certain characteristics such as branching pathways, multimodal media, collective narratives, and metafiction. There are different forms and styles of network writing such as codework, flarf, home-page fictions, email novels, fictional blogs/ social media sites, and network critiques. Network writing is centered within bigger "network discourse," which, on one side, advances the notion that immersion in "diverse textual forms" has "in some ways, degraded our experiences of reading and writing." The other side argues that, despite negative impacts of technology, "a greater proportion of people spend more of their time writing and reading now than ever before." I think this is a very interesting debate and it polarizes a lot of people. The intruding power that technology has over the average person's life is a bit concerning, particularly to the classic print industry. However, technological advances can make for more unique and intersectional art/ writing, and perhaps it would be worse to stay a stagnant society. I see both the pros and cons of a technology-reliant society.

    I chose to explore Justin Hall's personal blog, which he has been posting to since 1994. I really liked this work for a lot of reasons. I like the personal aspect that the blog format offers-- the short and informal style of the individual posts make them feel personal and authentic in a cool way. This webpage brings a lot of the same charm that the "lonelygirl15" video blogs did, where it feels like the audience is just hanging out with an old acquittance. It feels like the audience is being brought into the life of the poster, where seeing the poster's true thoughts makes the posts feel really personable. It's like the audience is being chosen to read the poster's diary, but the diary is kind of written for the audience. I also really like the multimodal aspect of the blog-- there's real pictures, dated print posts, and hyper-links within the work. I like being able to choose which memory of Justin's I look at, and I found myself identifying with a lot of his experiences in college.

https://www.links.net/vita/web/start/original.html