Blogging Behind Bars E-Book

Sebastian Matkey

• Herausgeber: GRIN Verlag
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2010 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Leipzig (Institut für Amerikanistik), language: English, abstract: Blogs have become a fast growing and influential medium of high cultural and social importance. Different kinds of texts are spread throughout the internet and become accessible for all cultural and ethnic groups. Since most blogs feature a comment section discussion about meaning becomes possible. As a result, readers are able to communicate directly with the author and discuss the content with him or her as well as among each other. One social group in particular that is getting more and more involved with this new medium are inmates in the United States. As they begin to explore and use blogging for expressing thoughts and ideas, it becomes increasingly evident that this is clearly not an invention of the digital age but rather a literary tradition that is revived and continued by blogging inmates. In my thesis, I will show how these prison blogs have revived prison literature by “techno-social” means (Raffl, Hofkirchner, Fuchs, Schafranek The Web as Techno-Social System: The Emergence of Web 3.0) that allow a direct exchange between reader and author. I will also show how certain themes of prison literature are taken up by prison blogs and, at the same time, transferred or adapted to this digital medium by doing close readings and literary analyses. In the end, I will have substantiated my claim by pointing out parallels in themes and approaches as well as mechanisms of influence and social interaction that all together made for a cross-media revival of prison literature.

Leseprobe

Table of Content

2. Prison Literature - 4 -

2.1. 1960s - 1980s - 5 -

2.2. Social Interaction - 6 -

2.3. Themes and Patterns - 7 -

2.3.1. Reminiscence, Trauma and Identity - 8 -

2.3.2. Reading, Writing and Identity - 12 -

3. Prison Blogs - 16 -

3.1. Techno-social character - 17 -

3.1.1. Expectations - 19 -

3.2. Process and Immediacy - 21 -

3.2.1. The Act of Writing - 22 -

3.2.2. The Perception of Time - 23 -

4. Conclusion - 25 -

Page 1

How Prison Blogs Revived Prison Literature in the United States

Eingereicht von:

Datum:

Studiengang:

Page 2

Abstract:

Blogs have become a fast growing and influential medium of high cultural and

social importance. Different kinds of texts are spread throughout the internet and

become accessible for all cultural and ethnic groups. Since most blogs feature a

comment section discussion about meaning becomes possible. As a result, readers

are able to communicate directly with the author and discuss the content with him or

her as well as among each other. One social group in particular that is getting more

and more involved with this new medium are inmates in the United States. As they

begin to explore and use blogging for expressing thoughts and ideas, it becomes

increasingly evident that this is clearly not an invention of the digital age but rather a

literary tradition that is revived and continued by blogging inmates. In my thesis, I will

show how these prison blogs have revived prison literatureby “techno-social” means(Raffl, Hofkirchner, Fuchs, Schafranek The Web as Techno-Social System: The

Emergence of Web 3.0) that allow a direct exchange between reader and author. I

will also show how certain themes of prison literature are taken up by prison blogs

and, at the same time, transferred or adapted to this digital medium by doing close

readings and literary analyses. In the end, I will have substantiated my claim by

pointing out parallels in themes and approaches as well as mechanisms of influence

and social interaction that all together made for a cross-media revival of prison

literature.

Page 2

(Miniwatts Marketing Group, Internet Usage Statistics 2009). Obviously, blogs are not books. However they can and need to be analyzed and compared equally for the simple fact that both mediums contain literature. Therefore, equivalent treatment is necessary. Aside from the fact that blogs are not as tangible as books and might arguably have a shorter half-life period due to their constant changing they do have an essential advantage over the traditional literary medium.

They do expand the above-mentioned one-way channel and not only that. Blogs are capable of transforming this channel of information into a communicative two-way channel. The reader can respond or simply comment to what the author has written and, at the same time, the author can comment on that as well. A certain kind of dialogue becomes possible. Meaning and perception are no longer fixed but variable due to communication which is something the medium book cannot provide simply because of its limited format.

This conclusion does, of course, not apply to every kind of text. Most blogs are non-fictional, in this case meaning that they are either dealing with factual issues from the fields of politics, economy or technology, or autobiographical, meaning that they center mostly on personal issues. Even though there is a small subgenre in the blogosphere that focuses on fictional writing, it is considered to be an exception with little to no relevance.“Although blogging in general has captured the public imagination, fictional blogging remains a marginal genre” (FriedrichsFictional Blogs).