The Internet Era Of Literary Development Of New Picture

The Chinese literature in the new century has been witnessing a mixed picture of prosperity and stagnation. The market transition has brought about the side-effect of the literature's marginalization in contemporary China. Nevertheless, the integration of the newly emerged internet technology with the literature gave birth to a bran-new type of arts, namely web literature.The web literature has undergone an unprecedented development by the auspice of the popularization of the internet technology, reinvigorating the field of Chinese literature. Yet, its prosperity has been hand in hand with controversies. Some argue that the web literature is a life-giver of the traditional literature while others deny its nature of being a type of literature. The author believes that the real important task nowadays is not to contend on the nature of the web literature, but to conduct deep investigation on it.This thesis contains three chapters. The first chapter gives an introduction to the transition of the Chinese literature in the IT era and the emergence of the web literature. Two sections are included in this chapter. The first section outlines the technological background of the web literature's emergence and attaches a definition to it in light of existing studies. The section maps out a historical evolution of the web literature and divides it into four phases.The body of this thesis lies in the second chapter which studies the production mechanism of the web literature. Four sections comprise this chapter. Section 1 focuses on the authorship and introduces four representative well-known web writers in China. Section 2 analyzes the major themes of the web literature and puts emphasis on love affairs, phantasia and realism. Section 3 is the analysis on the medium and mode of transmission. It concludes that the web literature predominantly exists in the forms of e-text, hypertext, and multimedia links in BBS forums and literature websites. Its transmission coincides with the production and exists on the interaction between authors and audients. Section 4 answers the question what is the linguistic style of the web literature and summarize its key features. It also distinguishes the web literature from traditional literature on three respects.The last chapter talks about the cultural background and the values of the web literature. Three sections constitute this chapter. Section 1 explores the cultural background and depicts its post-modern nature. Section 2 assesses the value of the web literature and gives positive appraisal whereas its drawbacks are also recognized. Section 3 puts forth recommendations regarding how to regulate and guide the web literature so as to achieve healthy developments. The author argues that artistic accomplishment, paradigm, self-discipline and the separation of arts from technologies are five controlling knobs in guiding the future development of the web literature.