NETWORK NARRATIVE: PROSE NARRATIVE FICTION AND PARTICIPATORY CULTURAL PRODUCTION IN DIGITAL INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION NETWORKS DAVID M. MEURER A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO July 2015 © David M. Meurer, 2015 ii Abstract In this study of prose narrative created explicitly for participatory network communications environments I argue that network narratives constitute an important, born-networked form of literary and cultural expression. In the first half of the study I situate network narratives within a rich, dynamic process of reciprocity and codependence between the technological, material and formal properties of communication media on the one hand, and the uses of these media in cultural practices and forms of expression on the other. I point out how the medial and cultural flows that characterize contemporary network culture promote a codependent relation between narrative and information. This relation supports literary cultural expressions that invoke everyday communication practices increasingly shaped by mobile, networked computing devices. In the second half of this study, I extend theoretical work in the field of electronic literature and digital media to propose a set of four characteristics through which network narratives may be understood as distinct modes of networked, literary cultural expression. Network narratives, I suggest, are multimodal, distributed, participatory, and emergent. These attributes are present in distinct ways, within distinct topological layers of the narratives: in the story, discourse, and character networks of the narrative structure; in the formal and navigational structures; and in the participatory circuits of production, circulation and consumption. Attending to these topological layers and their interrelationships by using concepts derived from graph theory and network analysis offers a methodology that links the particular, closely read attributes and content of network narratives to a more distant understanding of changing patterns in broader, networked cultural production. iii Finally, I offer readings of five examples of network narratives. These include Kate Pullinger and Chris Joseph’s Flight Paths, Penguin Books and De Montfort University’s collaborative project A Million Penguins, the Apple iOS application The Silent History, Tim Burton’s collaboration with TIFF, BurtonStory, and a project by NFB Interactive, Out My Window. Each of these works incorporates user participation into its production circuits using different strategies, each with different implications for narrative and navigational structures. I conclude by describing these distinct strategies as additive participation – participation that becomes embedded within the work itself – and delineating different approaches that are employed either independently or in combination. iv Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to the memory of my mother Susan, my grandfather Harry, and my grandmother Helen, who motivated and inspired me, and to Leslie, Mason and Daniel who generously gave me the time and support needed to complete it. v Acknowledgements Thanks are due first and foremost to my family, especially to my wife and best friend Leslie, and my sons and fellow adventurers, Mason and Daniel who were born into this journey and as a result have spent less quality time with me over these years than they deserved to. My father Manfred, my sisters Nadia and Jennifer, and my mother-in-law Wendy have provided me with a great deal of support, and I am very grateful to them. My research and writing have been greatly strengthened by the generous and detailed feedback provided to me by my supervisor Caitlin Fisher and committee members Rosemary J. Coombe and Monique Tschofen. Their insights have helped crystallize, clarify, and focus my thinking on many different aspects of this work, and I am deeply appreciative of their guidance, advice and mentorship. I have also benefited from the support granted to me by the Graduate Program in Communication and Culture, and particularly by the Graduate Program Directors – Barbara Crow, Steve Bailey, and Anne MacLennan – who have served during my time there. I was fortunate to enter the program and progress through it with a group of spirited and extraordinarily talented colleagues, and to be involved in several exciting labs and projects including the Augmented Reality Lab led by Caitlin Fisher, and Artmob, led by Rosemary J. Coombe, Christopher Innes, and Darren Wershler. My colleagues at York fostered an enormously beneficial environment for the productive exchange of ideas, criticism and commentary. My research and writing were financially supported by a number of programs, projects, and foundations. At York, I was supported at various points in time by a PhD vi Entrance Scholarship, a York International Mobility Award, and through employment on the research projects of Rosemary J. Coombe and Christopher Innes. These latter projects were in turn funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the Canada Research Chairs Program, the Ontario Innovation Trust (OIT), the Canadian Media Research Consortium (CMRC) and a York Faculty of Arts Research Grant. I was fortunate enough to also be supported by external funding programs, in particular the Dan David Foundation which awarded me a Dan David Scholarship, to Osnabrück University, Germany, which awarded me funding to attend their Summer School on the Cultural Study of the Law, and to the Central European University, which awarded me funding to attend their Summer University Program. Without these generous contributions, completing this research would never have been possible. Portions of chapters one and two were previously presented at the York University Graduate Humanities Conference (April 2011) and appeared in a different form in Dichtung Digital No. 42, Dec. 2012, (Special Issue on Electronic Literature Communities, Part 2) as “Authoring Community: Communication Networks, Electronic Literature and the Circuits of Cultural Production.” vii Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................................................ ii Dedication .................................................................................................................................................................. iv Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................................................. v Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................................... vii Chapter One: Introduction: Network Narrative and the Future of the Novel ................................ 1 The Future of the Novel and Electronic Literature ............................................................................. 10 From the Novel to Narrative ......................................................................................................................... 12 From Electronic Literature and Digital Fiction to Network Narrative ....................................... 18 Disciplinary Contexts ....................................................................................................................................... 22 Discussion of Methodologies ........................................................................................................................ 37 Summary ............................................................................................................................................................... 41 Chapter Two: Literature and Digital Media ................................................................................................ 43 Oral Narratives and Communication Media .......................................................................................... 50 Communication Media and the Novel ...................................................................................................... 53 Social Mediations of the Novel ..................................................................................................................... 57 Historical Connections Between the Novel and Contemporaneous Communication Technologies and Practices ........................................................................................................................... 61 Remediation in Digital Culture .................................................................................................................... 65 The Futures of Electronic Literature ........................................................................................................ 75 Literature and Digital Media ........................................................................................................................ 82 Chapter Three: Narrative and Information: Compatibilities and Incompatibilities ................. 89 Narrative and Information ............................................................................................................................ 91 Information .........................................................................................................................................................