Poet and e-literature teacher Stephanie Strickland, in her article Born Digital, lists eleven things that electronic literature is and is not. Sprinkled throughout her article are links to examples of online works that have the traits she is discussing. They are some good demos of what is possible. The article reminds me how much there is to explore and master, for the contemporary writer who wants to rise to the challenges and fulfill the potentials of the web. As a writer, I have two competing reactions. The first reaction is to ignore this list of criteria and tell my story my way. The second reaction is to wish to experiment with every possibility.

Citizen journalism has proved it is viable and deserves to be taken seriously. Not that issues of trust and accountability have disappeared, but there is every reason to keep experimenting. Writes Rory O’Connor in OhourNews:

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Henry Jenkins, who will soon have a book out called, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, posted an excerpt from his forthcoming book in his blog.

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Vin Crosbie on Rebuilding Media defines the term new media for us.

Jay Rosen posts on PressThink a statement that the people formerly known as the audience (also sometimes called “eyeballs”) want to make to media people. It’s a fun read, and there are lots of good comments afterwards.

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Christy Dena has coined a new term for research into entertainment that crosses media – transmodiology. In Latin, it means across, beyond or through media or modes. Thus, a researcher who studied both games and storytelling could fit under this umbrella. So could a person who was a student of both web comics and comics or both literature and hypertext literature. I don’t think it will catch on anytime soon in colloquial use, but its intent is more academic – Dena is using the word for the first time in a scholarly paper she’s writing. The name of her blog “Cross-Media Entertainment” – still seems more likely to be understood in colloquial use.

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I just came across an online paper that looks fascinating and covers a subject I’d not yet considered at any great length. It’s about concrete poetry, as you might guess from its title, “Concrete Poetry – A World View“. It was written by somebody named Mary Ellen Solt and was published in 1968 by Indiana University Press. I love wacky sixties writings on art and literature. Not that this is necessarily wacky. But I hope so!

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“Hypermedia art seems to follow a trajectory from the salon to the playground,” writes Mark Marino in his March 1st post on the WRT blog. He speculates about the reasons why, at the present time, children tend to comprise the audience that can best appreciate experimental works of hypermedia, digital fiction and poetry. Children are natural interacters. Children like to use all their senses. They like to play. They like to be physical. They are curious. Adults, on the other hand, Marino speculates, have become more accustomed to boredom. We have become accustomed to relatively disembodied and desensualized forms of interaction with the written word.

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