From the Page to the Screen. Digital Media, Cybertextuality and New Forms of Storytelling (PDF)

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2014 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Mannheim (Lehrstuhl für Amerikanische Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft (A III)), language: English, abstract: This paper is dealing with the developments of digital media and technology over the past three decades, and provide an insight in how they have influenced and changed the overall understanding of textuality and literature. New forms of text and narrative have evolved along the way with new technologies, which have also opened new perspectives on the way in which text is produced and stories are told.

Just as the invention of the printing press has set mankind into a new era of knowledge and literacy more than 500 years ago, the digital media offer the opportunity to experience and observe a similar significant stage in the evolution of text in real-time. How these new forms of text will influence the former ones, and where the further developments will lead, is not an easy question to answer. However, stories will always want to be told and they will find their way out into the world, just like water is making its way through solid rocks by using the smallest cracks.

Computers have taken over the world. Even if this sounds like a phrase which could easily be taken from a Hollywood movie, it is definitely true that computers and other digital technologies are more and more penetrating the daily life of people around the world. An increasing amount of time is spent on the computer, which we can now conveniently carry around in our pockets, providing us with the opportunity to access seemingly unlimited knowledge and information regardless from where we are. Technologies such as smartphones and social networks have influenced the way we think, how we interact with our environment, and also how we are consuming and interpreting text.