Textuality of mobile web novel

Abstract

The aim of this study was to analyze the narrative environment of mobile web novel, and to seek the special aspect of the novel as an alternative textuality in the digital age. According to Mcgann (2001), the relation between the book and the computer has much in common. When it is extended, the mobile and the book have more close relationship. Mobile web novel is the conversion of technology and literature which supports self-publishing and user customization system. It changes a passive reader into a creative writer by supporting self-publishing systems and authoring tools. Globally, it is a popular literature based on a mobile platforms, remediating various former media such as serialized novels in the newspapers, genre fictions and play scripts. This study concentrated on the interplay of conventional story and experimental format and expression in mobile web novel applying Jerome Mcgann’s notion about ‘Radiant Textuality’ which distinguished from printing textuality, redefining the literature after World Wide Web. In the mobile web novel’s textspace, alternative textual world is built as the distance between the reader and the other reader, the text and other text is narrow and the individual texts are linked together. These characteristics lead to various narrative experiments such as the possession writing (Bingytext) and Kasseol. Consequently, mobile web novel allows the reader to have digital reading experience and the writer to get interactive writing space in the era of mobility. © Rushing Water Publishers Ltd. 2018.