The Narrative Subject Storytelling in the Age of the Internet Christina Schachtner The Narrative Subject Christina Schachtner The Narrative Subject Storytelling in the Age of the Internet Christina Schachtner Institute of Media and Communications University of Klagenfurt Klagenfurt, Austria First published in German as “Das narrative Subjekt. Erzählen im Zeitalter des Internets.” Copyright for the German edition: 2016, transcript: Bielefeld, Germany Translated from the German by Helen Heaney ISBN 978-3-030-51188-3 ISBN 978-3-030-51189-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51189-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020. This book is an open access publication. 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The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland PREFACE Network actors and bloggers from various countries in the Arab world and Europe as well as from the USA provided the empirical basis for this book with their narratives in words and images. Thanks to their willingness to participate in the study “Communicative Publics in Cyberspace,” it was possible to propound a typology of narrations which can be read as time stamps, illustrating what is on the minds of adolescents and young adults in different parts of the world today. I would like to thank them for their readiness to talk. My thanks also go to the researchers in my team at the University of Klagenfurt, Nicole Duller, Katja Langeland, Katja Ošljak, and Heidrun Stückler, who conducted the interviews with great commitment. The translation of the book into English was accompanied by Doris Haslinger (FWF) and Sabina Abdel-Kader (FWF) as they paved the admin- istrative way for support by the Austrian Science Fund. With their profes- sional advice and much empathy, Lucy Batrouney, Mala Sanghera-Warren, and Bryony Burns from Palgrave Macmillan were very helpful in shep- herding this book through the various stages of publication in getting the book published. I would particularly like to thank the translator, Helen Heaney, for our intensive cooperation on the book, during which I learnt a lot about the art of translating and about wrestling with words and their meanings. Klagenfurt, Austria Christina Schachtner 2020 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The research results were supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) I 237-617. This book has been published with the support of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) Pub 577-Z32. The author also acknowledges the financial support of the Faculty of Cultural Studies at the University of Klagenfurt and the publishing fund of the University of Klagenfurt. vii CONTENTS 1 Introduction 1 1.1 The Sociocultural Significance of Narrating 3 1.2 The Subject-Theoretical Approach 4 1.3 Empirical Analysis 8 1.3.1 Methodology 8 1.3.2 Sample 12 1.3.3 Research Methods 13 1.4 Structure of the Book 16 1.5 Innovative Aspects 19 1.6 Major Themes 21 References 23 2 Storytelling as a Cultural Practice and Life Form 29 2.1 Contexts of Storytelling 34 2.1.1 Time 34 2.1.2 Space 41 2.2 The Functions of Narrating 51 2.2.1 Narrating as a Technology of Self-construction 51 2.2.2 Narrating Opening Up to the You 60 2.3 Narrating as a Technology of Subjection and Enablement 67 References 70 ix x Contents 3 The Narrative Space of the Internet 77 3.1 The Sociocultural Charge of Media 78 3.2 The Structural Characteristics of Digital Media 82 3.2.1 Interconnectedness 82 3.2.2 Interactivity 88 3.2.3 Globality 92 3.2.4 Multimediality 96 3.2.5 Virtuality 107 References 118 4 The Net Generation’s Stories: A Typology 125 4.1 Narrations About Interconnectedness 128 4.1.1 Showing and Exchanging 128 4.1.2 Seeing and Being Seen 130 4.1.3 Sharing 132 4.2 Self-Staging Narrations 134 4.2.1 The Adored Star 134 4.2.2 Role Model and Seeker in One 136 4.2.3 The Counter-Model 138 4.3 Stories About Supplying and Selling 142 4.3.1 Objects and Designer Products on Offer 142 4.3.2 Participatory Projects on Offer 145 4.4 Narrations About Managing Boundaries 147 4.4.1 Managing Boundaries as an Answer to Sociocultural Borders 148 4.4.2 Managing Boundaries as an Individual Need 152 4.5 Transformation Narrations 158 4.5.1 The Goal-Oriented Actors 158 4.5.2 The Role Player 163 4.6 Stories About Setting Out and Breaking Away 169 4.6.1 Setting Out and Breaking Away as a Biographical Project 169 4.6.2 Setting Out and Breaking Away as a Political Project 176 References 182 Contents xi 5 A Theoretical Postscript: Time, Space, the Self and the You, and Digital Media as Narrative Constructions 185 5.1 Time Stamps 187 5.1.1 “I wanted to play football with the boys but …”: Biographical Time 187 5.1.2 “It’s like a political awakening …”: Sociocultural Time 192 5.2 Spatial Relationships 194 5.2.1 Experiencing and Managing Boundaries 195 5.2.2 Spatial Crossings 198 5.2.3 Creating and Configuring Spaces 200 5.3 Representations of the Self 201 5.3.1 Standardization and Experimentation 202 5.3.2 Orientation 203 5.3.3 Division Versus Continuity 205 5.4 Connections with the You 208 5.4.1 Wrestling for the Other’s Attention 208 5.4.2 World Communication 210 5.5 Narrators, Narratives, Media: Cornerstones of Interplay 212 5.5.1 No End in Sight 212 5.5.2 The Upswing of the Image 214 5.5.3 Transmedia 217 References 220 6 Narrating as an Answer to Sociocultural Challenges 225 6.1 Detraditionalization 226 6.2 Pluralization 229 6.3 The Blurring of Borders 233 6.4 Individualization 236 6.5 Global Flows, Crossovers, and Hybridity 239 6.6 Round-up 244 References 245 xii Contents 7 Narrative Production of Culture 249 7.1 Culture and Its Designers 249 7.2 The Future of Narrating in Translation 251 7.2.1 Narrating and Translating 252 7.2.2 The Translational Turn 255 7.3 Media, Culture, and Narrative Translationality 259 References 264 Index 267 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Christina Schachtner, DDr. is professor of media studies at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria, and is particularly interested in the interrelations between people and digital technology. She has written on subject construction, the network society, gender and media, social move- ments in the digital age, and virtual spaces for playing and learning. She is currently working on the research project ‘Transnational Life: Migration and Mediatization’. xiii LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 4.1 Ready to receive and transmit (network actor, m, 26, Saudi Arabia) 129 Fig. 4.2 The absolute super cool guy (network actor, m, 29, Austria) 135 Fig. 4.3 The blogger as a candy seller (blogger, m, 24, Switzerland) 143 Fig. 4.4 Retreat into the private amidst an anonymous public (network actor, f, 19, Austria) 157 Fig. 4.5 On the lookout for the right thing (network actor, f, 12, Germany) 165 Fig. 4.6 Digitally assisted global communication (network actor, m, 21, USA) 175 Fig. 5.1 Standardization and experimentation (blogger, f, 24, Germany) 204 Fig. 5.2 The two-part portrait (blogger, f, 22, Germany) 206 Fig. 6.1 Communicating, working, and learning in overlapping spaces (network actor, m, 22, Austria) 231 xv CHAPTER 1 Introduction The idea behind this book was inspired by the findings of the study “Communicative Publics in Cyberspace”1 in which our research interest focused both on the communicative practices which young network actors and bloggers2 between the ages of 11 and 32 engaged in online and on the subject constructions which were created as part of these practices. In the study, the process of subjectification, in which the subjects constructed themselves or were constructed as such under specific conditions created by the use of media technology (Reckwitz, 2008, p. 9) lay at the heart of the empirical analysis.