Bronwen Thomas (Bournemouth University)
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.
Bronwen Thomas is an Associate Professor at Bournemouth University. She is Head of Research in the School of Journalism, English and Communication, and Director of the Centre for the Study of Journalism, Culture and Community. Bronwen has been PI on three AHRC funded projects on digital reading, the latest of which will create a series of digital stories capturing the experiences of readers as they make the transition from page to screen. Bronwen has published widely on online communities and new media narratives, and is currently working on a book on Literature and Social Media, to be published by Routledge in 2018.