Literacy in a Social Media Culture: An Ethnographic Study of Literary Communication Practices. Joachim Vlieghe Promotor: Prof. dr. Ronald Soetaert Proefschrift ingediend tot het behalen van de academische graad van Doctor in de Pedagogische Wetenschappen 2014 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The first words are always the hardest, even if those words are meant to express your praise and gratitude for the support you have received from others. Over the past four years I have had countless helping hands to guide me. Without them this PhD dissertation would have never seen the light of day. I sincerely want to thank each and every one of them. Of course, there are a few people who deserve extra attention, as they have also given it to me. First and foremost, I want to thank Prof. Dr. Ronald Soetaert for continuing to believe in my potential and helping me to achieve what some once thought impossible. I do not think of you as my supervisor, but instead I prefer the word that is printed on the front page: ―promoter‖. Ronald, you did more than just looking over my shoulder to check on my work. You also promoted my work and ideas whenever, wherever and to whomever you could. Ideas which you often inspired and then left to my care so I could tinker with them freely and make them my own. Most importantly, however, you taught me to look at any situation from multiple perspectives, showing me time and time again that ―there is always a perspective that you have not yet considered‖. I also want to thank the members of my guidance committee for the fruitful suggestions and feedback on my work: Prof. Katja Segers, Prof. James Zappen, Prof. Bram De Wever and Dr. Kris Rutten. All of my colleagues at the department of Education Studies also need a word of praise, but there are obviously a few people who deserve extra credit. First of all, I want to thank Geert Vandermeersche and Jeroen Bourgonjon for writing with me, giving me feedback, joining me at conferences, sharing many inspiring conversations with me and, of course, for collaborating on our interesting and fun side projects. Thursday afternoons will never be the same again! Also a big thanks to Eliane Van Alboom for her excellent revisions; to Jordi Casteleyen, Delphine Laire, Valerie Van Vooren and Jasmien Maes for their constant supply of amusing conversations, good laughs and decorative ideas that kept things so lively at office 120.018; and to Inge Peirsman, Annick Lippens, Joke De Lentdecker and Rebecca van der Wiele for all the help with my administrative tasks. I also need to thank to two lovely ladies: Eva Vekeman and Hilde Van Keer. Without you I would have undoubtedly missed out on the opportunity to embark on this adventure. Next, I want to express my deepest gratitude to my overseas colleague dr. Kelly Page. You have been a source of inspiration and encouragement, a delightful co-worker, a tremendous example and a good friend. I am certain that you will continue to be that, regardless of where our career and life choices may take us. i Finally, I want to sing praise to the people who are closest to me and who never stopped rooting for me. A special thanks to my former classmates Saarke and Dennis; to Barbara, Kimby, Charlotte, Silke, Kimberly, and Thomas of OLG Vriet Gebrikoleerd; to my dearest friends Joram, Tanja and Hans; to my sister Carolien and my brother David; to my parents Christel and Luc; and most of all to my partner Kelly. I cannot thank you enough for sticking with me when things were tough, for lifting me up when I was down, for standing by me when people doubted me and for believing in me when I doubted myself. This dissertation is our success! Joachim Vlieghe, Aalst, September 2014 ii ―I‘m quite illiterate, but I read a lot.‖ Jerome D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, p. 18 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................................................... I TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................................................................. V GENERAL INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................................... 1 NEW LITERACIES STUDIES: STUDYING LITERACY DIFFERENTLY ................................................................................................... 4 Ethnography and social linguistics ....................................................................................................................... 4 Literacy and new media ........................................................................................................................................ 4 Participation through media and discourse .......................................................................................................... 5 Digital media as affinity spaces ............................................................................................................................ 5 Literacy events and practices ................................................................................................................................ 6 UNDERSTANDING LITERACIES: STUDYING MEDIA, DISCOURSES AND TRANSFORMATIONS OF CULTURE AND SOCIETY ............................. 7 Literature and the shift from oral to written culture ............................................................................................ 7 Media plurality and the shift to multiliteracies .................................................................................................... 8 Social media and the shift to participatory culture .............................................................................................. 9 PRESENTING THE RESEARCH: STUDYING LITERARY COMMUNICATION PRACTICES IN A SOCIAL MEDIA CULTURE .................................. 11 Questions ............................................................................................................................................................ 11 Scope .................................................................................................................................................................. 11 Method ............................................................................................................................................................... 12 Structure and overview ....................................................................................................................................... 12 CHAPTER 1: A DEVELOPER’S PERSPECTIVE ON LITERARY COMMUNICATION IN SOCIAL MEDIA ENVIRONMENTS. 15 ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................................................... 16 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................................ 17 METHOD .................................................................................................................................................................... 18 Rhetorical analysis of discourse .......................................................................................................................... 18 Identifying the field and collecting the data ....................................................................................................... 19 FINDINGS .................................................................................................................................................................... 24 Social media as democratic social spaces ........................................................................................................... 24 The “social spaces” metaphor as an overarching theme .................................................................................... 25 Scene-agent: identifying and obscuring roles ................................................................................................................... 25 Scene-agency: providing space for confrontation and collaboration ............................................................................... 29 Scene-act-purpose: showing and developing taste .......................................................................................................... 30 Representation of roles and action dimension ................................................................................................... 32 The presence of recipients, producers and mediators ..................................................................................................... 32 The apparent absence of post-processors........................................................................................................................ 35 DISCUSSION ................................................................................................................................................................ 37 Summary ............................................................................................................................................................. 37 Conclusions ......................................................................................................................................................... 37 CHAPTER 2: LITERARY RECEPTION IN SOCIAL MEDIA ENVIRONMENTS ................................................................