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The readings this week were a lot of fun. Murray’s Charting the Literary Sphere introduced ideas of the twittersphere, hypertext and distant reading. I was especially interested in the author’s concern over interdisciplinary competitiveness in the digital literary sphere – under that umbrella term was the clash of print culture studies versus digital media studies versus digital literature studies… but why is everyone fighting?
I keep coming back to Bourdieu’s formulation of fields which, for me, reads as quite an aggressive culture battleground where social actors are competing for different positions. The whole concept of cultural prestige and intellectual property links back to my original thoughts on public scholarship, which you can find in my first post.
Watch out though, hyperlinks are cognitively loaded. Hayles talks about the information consumption that interacts with how we read, and argues that there should be a disciplinary shift to a broader sense of reading strategies and interpretations. Hypertext reading does not support an enriched reading, as scholars thought it might.
Thinking about the structures that exist around the reading we do for participation in class, leisure, for the approval of others etc.. creates an endless cycle of considerations for how we perceive what we read, particularly when we consider the influence of the digital, manifested in online book communities, reviewing sites, and the new ways book marketing can access its readership. More and more I have begun to ask myself, how much stock the average reader puts into a review, blog post, or critical introduction they have read before they encountered the text itself? When I am reading an article online, how far do I stray from the original text I intended to read by the time I am done reading? Sometimes I’ve clicked the embedded links so many times my original research question has lost all meaning.
I am particularly interested in what Murray has to say about the impact of the digital on literary culture, particularly how that culture has not only moved online (Murray cites blogs and book review sites, likely Goodreads specifically), but has ‘come into its own’ in a way. In hindsight, many of the claims Murray makes about online literary culture are accurate not only to the literary culture of the 2010s but to the one which would continue to develop on TikTok, Instagram, and twitter/X following the pandemic and into the 2020s, deeply entwined with the commercial publishing industry.
Wright seems particularly concerned with the idea of a mediating factor between publisher and reader in the form of lists. Wright particularly cites certain literary prizes, presumably awarded by those with the proper authority to decide what is as well as more ‘democratic’ lists such as the BBC’s The Big Read, and celebrity lists such as Oprah’s Book Club, which are widely perceived as having the overall net good of promoting public engagement with the practice of reading yet infuse commercial marketing, branding into that practice on a deeper level.
Particularly with the Hayles reading, I found myself examining how the highlighted manners of reading affected my own comprehension and reading style between various modes. Especially with hyperreading, I found myself exhibiting the ‘f pattern’ of reading in real time with the article itself, forcing me to confront how deeply I was actually comprehending the material, subsequently returning and re-reading sections I had not paid attention to. Similarly, the practice of following nested trees of hyperlinks is something I do often, particularly within self-contained communities of short stories that draw upon one another to flesh out and create a consistent world. This practice is at once frustrating as it can lead to forgetting the original text, but can also provide entirely new modes of reading in the digital landscape, similarly to the blocks of text being revealed in Hayles’ example of The Patchwork Girl to simulate a fractured nature. Close reading, meanwhile, is something that never really seems to leave my conception of what it means to read a text, being constantly reinforced as the literary ‘gold standard’ by wider academia. It finds its place as central to the digital sphere too dues to its close synergies with machne reading. This confluence of both machine and close reading can elevate our literary analysis within the modern age to include pattern recognition and highlight trends that may otherwise be entirely missed, representing the fusion of human and digital perspectives that so characterises Digital humanities.
The ‘Digital’ (as a vast overgeneralisation) is changing the literary sphere at every level: publishing processes, notions of authorship and authority, books as consumer objects, marketing infrastructures mediating author–reader relations. Murray’s account of an expanded ecology of paratexts, that today we can further expand to Substack newsletters, BookTok, reading logging apps, presents literary valuation as produced in a liminal zone. Reading itself is altered both practically and culturally, from how we engage with texts to how we choose what to read from this “endless list”. Questions that these authors are considering 10 to 20 years ago, expand and persist. In 2026, I find there to be an increasing scepticism around social media, and so now we see an age in which reading seems to reaffirm itself as a status symbol – becoming almost a sign of a successful ‘escape’ from the digital. The image of the ‘performative male’ with a paperback in a trouser pocket comes to mind, which I think illustrates nicely how the physical book has gained a sort of aura. It can be a bit of a contentious archetype on many levels but relevant here for its irony as a trope intrinsically associated with the media yet it seeming to claim rejection of. It draws parallels with our discussion about design decisions and Daisy’s example of the Fitzcarralo editions that to me exude a similar aesthetic of intellectualism. I could yap on about the Fitzcarralo book covers and the significance of Yves Klein Blue, but for the purpose of this post, it’s a design strategy that seems to represent the publisher trying to articulate their role as merit evaluator. In the context of Murray’s observation that the digital literary sphere erodes the traditional gatekeeper role of the publisher, Fitzcarralo perhaps is using colour as a beacon to grasp at this authority of cultural arbiter, a role that is more diversified in the digital literary sphere.
Hayles’ analysis of reading practices in the digital age anticipates anxieties of attention fragmentation that have only intensified the following 15 years. I found her article initially unsettling precisely because it feels prescient, but ultimately Hayles seems to offer a way of thinking through this without nostalgia or technophobia. Insisting that close, hyper and machine reading function best in relation and conjunction with each other another reframes the ‘problem’ of reading as one of transfer rather than decline. The issue of cognitive overload should make us more conscious of mobilising different types of reading deliberately.
There seems a theme across Hayles, Murray, and Wright’s essays of how we assert our own agency as readers and scholars in this digital literary sphere. The optimistic takeaway from each is that we have the capacity to be more conscious in reading: both attending to the practice of how we read and how we choose what we read in a world where we will most certainly never be able to read everything. This autonomy is largely undermined though by the fallacy of consumer choice. Wright’s study of list culture describes how consumers are assigned the role of arbiter, but really this is heavily rhetorical, contextualised by the actual functioning of the bestseller-list’s own action in the book world as active marketer, not just consumer record – ‘the list’ in this way takes over this role of arbiter from readers without us even realising it. The reader might be able to gain this ‘meriting’ stance in other ways enabled by the digital sphere through virtual social engagement over texts.
Texts mentioned:
Hayles, N. Katherine. ‘How We Read: Close, Hyper, Machine’. ADE Bulletin, vol. 150, 2010, pp. 62–79.
Murray, Simone. ‘Charting the Digital Literary Sphere’. Contemporary Literature, vol. 56, no. 2, 2015, pp. 311–339.
Wright, David. ‘Literary Taste and List-Culture in a Time of “Endless Choice”’. From Codex to Hypertext: Reading at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century, edited by Anouk Lang, University of Massachusetts Press, 2012, pp. 108–23.
There is no denying that the way we read has changed. Scholars and researchers (like Hayles) point to the changes in the physical and cognitive ways we read, drawing attention to different modalities of reading, such as hyperreading or, emerging now on a massive scale, machine reading. These are usually compared with the present-for-centuries method of close reading. As a result of these evolving practices, our attention shifts from deep focus to skimming, pecking, and falling down the rabbit hole of hyper….
However, cognitive changes are one thing; what is also being transformed is the way we perceive reading, how we choose to read, what we choose to read, but more importantly, what is the “cultural value” and value in general that we attribute to a text, reading as an activity, readers and writers as people, etc. In the essay ‘Charting the Digital Literary Sphere’, Simone Murray takes a closer look at the essential domain that materialised with the ubiquitous emergence of “cyber” – the titular “digital literary sphere”. “Substack”, “Booktok”, “bookstagram”, “Goodreads”, the omnipresent Amazon.com… all the digital platforms, nooks and crannies of the Web that have already transformed and are still reconstructing the reading culture. What comes with this handiwork of the digital age has two sides. On the one hand, to use Murray’s phrasing, the digital literary sphere ‘erodes many of the traditional gatekeeper roles’, opening up discussions surrounding literature to amateurs and validating their taste. On the other hand, these developments ‘radically [undercut] the cultural-arbiter status of professional literary critics’ and in effect ‘”literature” […] becomes that which the digital literary sphere deems to be literature’. What, however, are the processes that are enmeshed in the digital redefinition of “literature”?
Crucially, we need to consider the cultural production of the contemporary digital literary sphere. David Wright draws attention to the ongoing ‘shift from word-of-mouth recommendation to algorithms recognised by software, in which […] the forms of “value” identified and exchanged by reviewers – are coded and automated’. As an example, the critic focuses on the “List Culture”, think: the trending books, “Top 100 books to read before you die”, book prizes, and the top 10 books on Amazon.com. And yes, I agree with Wright that “the list”, as well as (not mentioned by the author) bookstagram posts, Goodreads statictics, etc., [are] also a way of ‘negotiating the “endless” literary choice of the digital age’, because, it is true, the sheer volume of available books to read can be overwhelming. But! when looking at these developments, I cannot help but think about the processes of production, marketing, commodification, and consumption…
In the digital world, or the “digital literary sphere”, reading becomes inextricably tangled with the omnipresent standardised data – data about our reading, our tastes, “best of …” lists based on our ratings out of 5 stars, views and shares of posts, comments that unavoidably attract internet trolls, and so on. This all seems symptomatic of “knowing capitalism”.
“Knowing capitalism” is Nigel Thrift’s term (mentioned also in Wright’s article) that refers to an economic system in which data and information function as means of attributing value, specifically capital value. In such a societal structure, institutions and corporations use the collected data to generate profit for themselves but also to control human experience. In the digital world of reading, our tastes, reading activities, reviews, book culture in general, are being constantly observed, analysed and converted into massive amounts of data for the book industry conglomerates that then, as Wright puts it, ‘offer a means of organising and prioritising resources in the book industry such that they are “actively participating in the doings of the book world.”‘
Reading has thus entered, in Murray’s words, ‘a hazardous terrain of valorizing and consecrating authorities’. TO me it seems that reading is becoming kind of a dance between what seems anti-reductionist “sophisticated” reading practices of those interested in ” the content” of the book, how it is conveyed, questions and reflections it leads to; and, the commercial cover-based colourful world of 5 out of 5 best reads according to … I suppose, in a way, the value of reading is also changing, from the cultural, intellectual value of critical thinking to commercial, profit-oriented valuation.
Articles I mentioned:
Hayles, N. Katherine. ‘How We Read: Close, Hyper, Machine’. Modern Language Association, 2010, pp. 62–79.
Murray, Simone. “Charting the Digital Literary Sphere.” Contemporary Literature, vol. 56, no. 2, 2015, pp. 311–39. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24735010. Accessed 28 Jan. 2026.
Wright, David. ‘Literary Taste and List-Culture in a Time of ‘Endless Choice’’. From Codex to Hypertext: Reading at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century, edited by Anouk Lang, University of Massachusetts Press, 2012, p. pp 108-123. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ed/detail.action?docID=4533124.
How am I engaging with literature now? Do I take notice of best-of lists, recommendations through newspapers, or influencer “what I read this month” posts? How much can I say I am developing my own taste, led by my own choices and interests?
Partly in response to Izzy’s comment in class about self-conscious reading, and in engaging with the three readings from this week, these questions feel important to keep in mind. Each author, in some way, engages with ideas of literary or scholarly accessibility and democracy. The “canon” is, in some ways, expanding through a widening structure of value, no longer in the sole control of established literary or cultural icons, but perhaps influenced by a self-published author or blogger.
However, as David Wright considers, the endless choice currently faced by people deciding what to read is still mediated by assessments of value. Personally, the ideal of self-directed choice feels out of reach. I know what my interests are, and I engage with media that responds to those interests, but in doing so I seem to create my own echo chamber of creative and political outputs.
Despite these feelings of overwhelm, or self-reproach at my lack of engagement with different literary or cultural spheres, the readings we have looked at encourage me to reintroduce a practice of “deep attention.” Katherine Hayles notes that although our capacity for slow, attentive, and empathetic reading is not lost, there is a need to continually and deliberately engage with literature and other cultural products that challenge what we know and what we believe.
These readings were all really interesting in the way they consider and focus on the commercial and marketing aspect of the subjects of critical reading. Murray highlights the audience and author relationship that needs be fostered into the creation of novels and works in today’s overly consumerist western world. This makes me wonder the extent to which authors tied to publishing full length novels and books that end up physically printed and sold in bookstores, are Would this shift mean that traditional publishing houses and means will become more redundant? What can publishing houses do to move away from this road to pure commercial redundancy? (I liked the mention in class of the minimalist book cover with the text from the book written on the cover discussed in class as this specific marketing decision ties into the shift that commercial publishing practices are doing to cater to these changes) This discussion also made me consider how more ‘authentic’ pieces of writing have shifted to digital platforms such as substack, Goodreads reviews (including ‘para-text’), platforms that are ‘open-access’ and that allow for writings that look to generate peer-read opinions and discussions rather than commercially motivated writings. (what I mean by the term ‘authentic’ is that the writing might not have a commercial motivation behind it)
neuroscience cognitive aspect of reading, the connections we make. In particular, Hayes reading made me think of the scholarly concept of ‘chrononormativity’ how society is arranged in a way to direct us towards maximum productivity. I think this idea links quite well with the concept of ‘hyperreading’ as hyperlinks and endless streams of information brought by digital media in our reading practices of these include a sense of urgency in the process. And I agree with the article in the way it argues that we no longer read ‘deeply’ in the digital media landscape, but rather inside the endless array of information (whether it is info that contradicts or links with one another).
I found the liminal space between digital communities and contemporary literary culture that Simone Murray identifies a really productive and generative place for discussion; lots of members of the class brought in examples from other areas of study or from other areas of culture which identified other actors in the relationship between these two phenomena. It also seems to me that quite a lot of the articles we’ve read so far are grounded in more ‘real’-feeling, current social or political issues and come from quite an advocatory perspective, proposing more workable and concrete changes in DH working practices or policy, rather than the more intangible conclusions I often come away from after reading conventional literary criticism. Matthew K. Gold and Lauren F. Klein identify increasingly prevalent intentions of those working in the field to ‘[connect] their work with social justice imperatives’ in their introduction to DDH 2023.
Katherine Hayles’ article in particular also made me think about modalities, in particular audio ‘reading’ (audiobooks, podcasts) and how this might affect comprehension and retention of information. I consume quite a lot of information via this medium, and haven’t really thought much about the specificities of how I engage with it compared to sight reading (whether print or digital). It definitely allows more engagement with different texts in a lot of ways (infomaxxing while I’m walking or doing the washing up), but I’m never sure how this affects my retention of content. I suspect that this maybe echoes the distinction Hayles makes between short-term working memory and long-term memory? Like hyperreading, I wonder if listening engages short-term memory more than the deeper comprehension associated with typical print reading, hopefully I can do a bit of reading around this in the future!
The word ‘disintermediation’ came up in Murray’s article too, and I found it to be an interesting way of expanding the ways we think about literary and digital ecosystems. Her matrix neatly details the ways in which the role of traditional literary middle-people (publishers) have been impacted amidst writers’ ability to communicate to readers. I think that discussing the processes which are now engaged in these discourses (other media which elevates authors to the status of celebrity and literary communities which grow on social media platforms, for example) allows us to investigate how the functionality of these processes might impact readership and how texts are received, as well as the interests of the people and organisations developing and maintaining digital platforms. As a funny side note, this expansive consideration of literary ecosystems also made me think about the internet trends of ‘performative reading’, and how pre-existing cultural ideas around certain texts or writers can be used signal intelligence or a particular worldview. Hopefully walking around 50GS with my printed out Debates in the Digital Humanities makes me look very high brow, or low brow, or no brows – I don’t know!
