Transformation of reader's role in the era of hypertext

New technologies are changing people's attitude to communication, education and everyday life. Reader's practice is also changing. Sequential reading of long texts is not popular today. Young people are characterized by dispersed attention, multitasking and fast switching between different kinds of activity. In recent decades the Internet has become the main channel of information. Literary works born on the Internet are called network literature. Since the 1990s network literary games ("ROMAN" [novel], "Burime" etc.) have been appearing in Russia. Readers have become the authors of fragments of hypertext literary works. Reading grows active, nonlinear; text has lost its borders, it can be expanded and supplemented. Several genres of network literature have been formed, e. g. guestbook, chat, forum, virtual personality, review, portal, blog. Some of literary stars write blogs today. For example, Sergei Lukyanenko puts his new book chapters into the blog and asks readers for advice. The role of readers in such text generation is also active, their opinions and comments affect the story line. Book publishers react to the development of new genres and produce books with network literature texts. Sometimes readers' comments are fully involved in the structure of publication. Love of History by Boris Akunin, which is based on his blog, is a good example of it. There are 2-5 comments with their authors' nicknames at the end of every chapter. Previously, readers perceived the finished text linearly. Today they can change the author's text, the sequence of fragments, the story line and the composition. Publishers also actively use the new role of readers.

Keywords

Authors

References