Via Kate Pullinger’s Flight Paths blog, here’s a brand new manifesto for electronic literature: “A [S]creed for Digital Fiction,” by members of the Digital Fiction International Network (Alice Bell et. al.) In light of the reading we’ve done in this class so far, what do you think of the DFIN’s definition of ‘digital fiction’?
Especially the closing section on what they’ve chosen to omit:
A [s]creed for digital fiction deliberately neglects…
…blogs,…communitarian digital fiction,
…digital storytelling,
… and any other form of digital narrative that does not qualify as fiction. While we welcome the authorial democratization that Web 2.0 technology permits and wholeheartedly support research that seeks to understand it, life narratives are fundamentally nonfiction and therefore beyond our remit.
I’m not entirely convinced the borders of fiction and nonfiction are as clear as they make them out to be, especially on the web. What about blog fiction? What about hoaxes? How does one define ‘fiction’ these days, anyway?
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