Autonomieideal vs. Authentizitätsästhetik. Zirkulationstreiber und Interferenzeffekte an der Schwelle von Sozialen Medien zum Literaturbetrieb

Abstract

In recent years, communities of literary practice have sprung up across various social media platforms. Here, circulation plays a much more important role than in the traditional literary scene where the printed book still holds sway: It is the decisive factor in whether or not a given text is recognized as making a legitimate contribution to the literary field. Accordingly, the notion of literature that dominates in such online communities differs markedly from that of established literary criticism and scholarship: Literary value is not assigned based on criteria such as fictionality, autonomy, polyvalence, and self-referentiality, but rather according to an entirely different set of principles, namely authenticity, heteronomy, affective potential, and relatability to real-world phenomena. The following essay examines this radical dichotomy with the assistance of two examples from the Chinese- and English-speaking worlds, where it is particularly evident in instances of gatekee** that occur at the threshold between social media and printed books.

Gefördert durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) im Rahmen der Exzellenzstrategie des Bundes und der Länder innerhalb des Exzellenzclusters Temporal Communities: Doing Literature in a Global Perspective – EXC 2020 – Projekt-ID 390608380.