Abstract
This paper considers how to integrate discussion of online audience reception into literary courses. Based on past literary courses I’ve taught, I’ve considered how to engage students not just in the story they might be critiquing, but to interest them in building meaning and multiple narratives. Students are urged to consider audience reception as an interpretive lens, and to consider the extent critical views of work can be taken as representative. Thoughts/questions I pose to students include: “There are multiple layers of story analysis occurring today, online/offline. You are a critic. You voice matters, or does it? Does any critique of a story matter?” The question of critical views of representative re-envisions the function of a critic. For modern audiences, there are several ways to view and discuss stories. Students integrate online audience sentiment by placing the informal everyday critic (from social media/informal review sites) in context with a chosen literary work. Analyzing audience reception (or sentiment) of a chosen story can help position a student researcher as an informal critic themselves, and what this means for storytelling and online discourse overall. Through this activity in relation to their literary analysis, students are encouraged to increase their digital literacy skills, and to review alternative sources and how they differ from traditional sources. Additionally, this activity may encourage students to consider how creativity and authorship are always about reception and pleasing the audience; and now, the audience has more immediate and wide-reaching means to share perspectives.
Presenters
Jonina Anderson LopezProfessor, General Education, Joyce University, Florida, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Audience Reception, Online Analysis, Informal Critics, Students, Literary studies
