Digital Media And The Transformation Of Literary Criticism

Digital media is profoundly changing the patterns of literature’s production, dissemination, consumption and evaluation. This dissertation, mainly taking two types of literary criticism, namely the traditional "expert criticism" and the newborn "grassroots criticism", as the research object, tries to examine the transformation, brought about by cyberspace, of the field, subject, method and discourse of literary criticism.The dissertation is divided into four chapters. Chapter I generally discusses the structural changes of critical field brought by digital media, and analyzes the positions of and the relationship between expert criticism and grassroots criticism by comparing their different capital and habitus as well as expounding the struggle, collusion, interaction between them and their own predicaments. Chapters Ⅱ to Ⅳ, from the three aspects of subject, method and discourse, discusses various phenomenon, laws and corresponding transformation presented by expert criticism and grassroots criticism in cyberspace. The conclusion is that "there is a spatial turn and a generation of’amateurism’ in literary criticism".Chapter Ⅰ,"digital media and the new changes of critical field", generally discusses the structural changes of critical field brought by digital media. Digital media enables professional critics to enter cyberspace speak, and causes the proliferation of critical rights."Grassroots criticism", a new criticism type, has thus emerged, and the critical field has then formed a new situation in which expert criticism and grassroots criticism are confronting each other. Expert criticism is mainly associated with the traditional literature, while grassroots criticism is associated with the network business writing. Professional critics have cultural capital and social capital, mainly focusing on providing legitimacy for traditional literature, while grassroots groups have brought business writing the economic capital and "online popular capital". In addition, expert criticism and grassroots criticism have different critical habitus, which have been impacted or strengthened by digital media. The critics should enhance the reconsideration and the adjustment of their habitus. Expert criticism and grassroots criticism also fight against each other in order to compete for the legitimacy of literature definition. But behind the appearance of intense competition with expert criticism, the symbol violence in the grassroots groups always lets them subconsciously identify with professional critics’ definition of literary legitimacy. At the same time, the symbol violence has prompted them to become unconscious conspirators of the orthodoxy who tries to expel the avant-garde in the internal struggle of professional critics. Media criticism constantly steps in and pushes forward the struggle between expert criticism and grassroots criticism. For their common interests, expert criticism and grassroots criticism attempt to contact and interact with each other, so professional critics try to show their limited acceptance for network business writing, and traditional writers also try to contact network and grassroots group. However, this interaction has fallen into predicaments which are rooted in the dislocation of their positions.Chapter II,"individual and crowd:the psychoanalysis of critical subject", discusses the impact of cyberspace on the spirit symptoms and identity recognization of critical subject from the perspective of "the relationship between individual and crowd". First, this chapter examines professional critics’ spirit symptoms of their surviving in the network. Cyberspace brings the conversion of "gaze". In traditional criticism, professional critics exercise the power of "look", and ensure that the works are "visible". On the contrary, digital media has brought the "invisibility" of works, and at the same time make the critics, who have been gazed by the "crowd" in cyberspace,"visible", which results in the decline of the authority of professional critics. Digital media has changed professional critics’ distinction between "front region" and "back-stage" into "online" and "off-line". In order to sustain the identity as "experts", professional critics’ words and actions become a "performance", but the ideal egos constructed by them in the front region are just illusions. Facing the new historical context, critics need to adjust their posture to adapt to the digital culture, and transform themselves from legislators to interpreters. Second, this chapter discusses the "group" phenomenon of grassroots critics caused by cyberspace. Whether it is inward "seeking-after-the-works" or external offense, the grassroots critics exist in groups, and form a carnival community. This carnival is revolutionary to some degree, but eventually it falls into a dilemma and has to face some crisis. It is not a universal carnival, but turns out to be a personal attack; not a dialogue full of different opinions, but a homogeneous unity; and not an ideal interpersonal association, but a hierarchical system. The various ideal egos constructed by grassroots groups in this carnival are merely illusions, which eventually could not escape the gaze from the Other.Chapter Ⅲ,"cognitive difficulties and the response of critical methods and reading strategies", inspects critical methods and reading strategies in the cyberspace. The sea of works in cyberspace has formed a hyperspace beyond people’s perception, and it is difficult for professional critics to grasp the overall literary reality, leaving them in a predicament of "representation". At the same time, an unprecedented disciplinary space formed by the works in cyberspace pushes grassroots critics so deeply into a discipline trap of commercial literature that they cannot perceive the domination of capital, thus they are also facing the predicament of "representation". To solve this problem, professional critics take methods of allegorical criticism and integral study while grassroots critics take some reading strategies of poaching and misappropriation. Allegorical criticism turns professional critics into some people who dive and pick pearls, in other words, who try to find masterpieces in the vast literature fragments. In doing so, professional critics can not only deny the commercialization of literature in cyberspace, but also try to save the authenticity of literature. The integral study is consistent with the modular and homogeneous characteristics of network literature, through which professional critics can grasp the variety of network literature in general. If the allegorical criticism is often used to discover and collect the works, which are scattered and lost in various internet forums, written just for interest by lovers of literature, the integral study is then more effective for those literary works which were written to make money on reading websites. Grassroots critics show their resistance to commercial discipline through reading piracy. They take online literature as inspirational works, and based on their amateur position and just for amusement write a lot of imitation, causing the use value to oppose the exchange value. But in the end, the playing amateurs turn into experts to make money, making the use value re-transform into the exchange value, then the grassroots critics’ resistance ultimately sinks into difficulty.Chapter IV,"the transformation of critical discourse and the construction of public sphere", compares the different discourse styles of expert criticism and grassroots criticism, and on this basis explores the possibility to construct public sphere. Expert criticism and grassroots criticism have both formed their own jargon. The terminological and professional features of the former are the products of internal circulation in academic community, and have brought a decline in the traditional critical functions of understanding works and guiding readers. The colloquial and visual features of the latter however, are the results of unconfined present crowd’s interaction, and have strengthened the traditional function of criticism. The talkative atmosphere brought by people present provides a possibility to construct literary public sphere, but there are also some obstacles such as verbal abuse, peer pressure, and symbolic power. Nevertheless, if we take some appropriate measures, there will be successful attempts like "LongKong Forum" and "Minority Garden". On this basis, critics can reconstruct the public concern of criticism from "literature" to "society", and by making use of the internet, they can achieve a combination of professionalism and publicity, develop some universal corporatism and intellectual-internationalism, then through which they can intervene social reality, recover and reconstruct the public concern of literary criticism.The conclusion of this dissertation is that "there is a spatial turn and a generation of’amateurism’ in literary criticism". Cyberspace provided by digital media has brought some revolutionary changes to literary criticism, which has formed some new field in which expert criticism and grassroots criticism are confronting each other. The subject, method and discourse of literary criticism are all facing some adjustment and transformation. As for the subject, literary criticism is facing the problem of relationship between individual and crowd, a problem which has never been so prominent. Professional critics need to "enter" the crowd and change themselves from legislators to interpreters; grassroots critics need to go out of the crowd and change themselves from immersing themselves in the carnival community to cultivating their self-consciousness and rational thoughts. As to the method, literary criticism has to deal with the unprecedented dilemma of "representation". Professional critics need to take the methods of allegorical criticism and integral study, and grassroots critics need to take reading strategies of poaching and misappropriation just for temporary use. With regard to the discourse, literary criticism has transformed from internal circulation of community to interaction of presence. On this basis, the professional critics can restore the literary public sphere, and reconstruct the publicity of literary criticism. This new historical context of literary criticism and its corresponding adjustment and transformation can be called a "spatial turn", which calls for an "amateurism" of criticism. Cyberspace has brought a large number of amateur critics beyond the present system, it has also offered possibility for professional critics within the system to change themselves from experts to amateurs. Experts and grassroots should both keep their "amateur" feelings.