2 Matching Annotations
  1. Jan 2017
    1. it can be described as "literary works created with the use of a computer for the electronic medium such that they cannot be experienced in any meaningful way without the mediation of an electronic device"

      This seems very limiting to me. Again, while I see the importance of the line between works experienced through their original medium and works experienced through an adapted medium, I don't believe adaptations should inherently be less meaningful. That aside, this definition still relies on the equally nebulous definition of "literary works." I think part of the point of this article is to gain or consider the recognition of "The Academy" but are we to assume that "literary works" are those also recognized by The Academy? (Especially considering how often e-lit itself falls outside that category...) It isn't as specific as it clearly wants to be; this definition of e-lit (like the previous one) relies on readers agreeing on what constitutes "literary."

    1. “born digital” works are created explicitly for the networked computer

      This brings up an interesting question about adaptations. Must a work be "born" digitally? When plays are adapted to novels, for example, do they lose their "important literary aspects" (which seems like a very arbitrary phrase to me anyway)? I would argue that adaptations to different mediums aren't inherently lesser (or less "literary") than their originals and I wonder how that might impact the way we'd classify a piece. There's always been questions about whether an adaptation is really "the same" work as the original anyway, so would transforming something into e-lit actually make it e-lit? On the other hand, what happens when e-lit is transformed into something accessible to those without access to whatever technology it was originally intended for? If you make a twine game into a sort of printed choose-your-own-adventure book, have you really lost what makes it valuable as e-lit or have you stepped up even further the idea that e-lit is partially intended for greater accessibility?