Paper Twitter and Hypertextual Social Critique

Marc has already proposed a fantastic session on a “paper Twitter” and we’re delighted that he will be bringing his research and brain to THATCamp QueensU all the way from Littératures francophones et résonances médiatiques at Concordia!

My name is Marc Rowley, and I am a Master’s student at Concordia University in Littératures francophones et résonances médiatiques. My thesis research surrounds the question of Twitter as a medium for social critique, specifically comparing and contrasting this hypertextual form to traditional media such as comedic novels, in order to identify commonalities and divergences in their practices and effects on readers. I hope to attend THATCamp to broaden my network of new media researchers, and to realize an artistic project: the creation of a “paper Twitter”, which will help participants, myself included, more clearly identify which structures on Twitter are universal properties of human communication, and which are inseparable from its hypertextual form….I entered the MA program in Littératures francophones et résonances médiatiques in September 2012, and have decided to focus my research on the social critique capacity of Twitter: specifically, to compare and contrast this type of critique with that found in literary forms throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, such as the comedic novel. Outside of school, my interests include theatre (both creation and consumption), writing (mostly essays, with some creative projects as well), eating locally, and lots (lots) of reading (from Tolkein to Rowling to Houllebecq)

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