My dissertation traces the global pathways and dead ends of global
issues. My research explores the paradox that some news stories have reached a
higher probability of distribution than other, equally important issues in the
cyber realm of the 21
st century.
By employing a narratology approach in order to capture the “narratable” versus the “unnarratable” (Gerald
Prince), my dissertation investigates why certain global narratives become more pervasive than other, equally vital issues; notably with the novel dynamics of cyberspace.
Working with my advisors, Professor Brinker-Gabler
(Comparative Literature), Professor Majer-O’Sickey (German Studies), and
Professor Holmes (Anthropology), my dissertation roots within an integral and
interdisciplinary approach of narratology, Media Studies, and ethnography.
The paradox of
globalized communication is that the citizen is concerned most with
global issues, but gets less informed
and less concerned about them by the media. While acts of communication
epitomize the global era, and the communicative is performative of the global (i.e. information is the most
distributed good in this era of globalization), information has lost its performative potential (i.e. the über-availability of information has not translated into an equivalent degree
of knowledge and of global response).
My
dissertation shifts the focus from traditional media to cyber discourse.
The internet (r)evolutionizes the modes of (re)production and the communication
model. Cyber communication is a complex–and circular–process of:
(i)
oscillating between producer
and user
(ii)
merging the message
and the channel, and
(iii)
circulating a fluidity of textual structures (“palimpsests”).
My theoretical approach of narrative focuses the specific poetic nature and representation of
an event/issue. Applying a center-periphery model of narratives,
I distinguish between highly productive narratives in the center of cyber discourse; as well as
“unnarratable” (Gerald Prince) counterproductive narratives that remain on the
periphery. The global topography of news distribution entails not only a
question of availability (and
imbalance) of resources, but founds within the proneness of the global audience to accept/decode specific narratives.
