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New Media Narratives: Olivia Sudjic’s Sympathy and Identity in the Digital Age

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Narrative in Culture
This chapter is in the book Narrative in Culture

Abstract

This chapter reflects on the status of novels in the age of social media by examining Olivia Sudjic’s Sympathy (2017) as a case study. Hailed as “the first great Instagram novel” by reviewers, Sympathy offers a meditation on the impact of social media on subjectivity and intimacy. The chapter examines how narrative techniques are employed to reflect on wide-spread hopes and fears concerning the digitalization of communication. It then complements this discussion with a historical perspective, arguing that by focusing on the interplay between media and identity, Sudjic’s book updates a double claim which is as old as the genre of the novel: that the media we consume have a formative impact on who we are, and that narrative fiction deserves a prominent place in a hierarchy of different media formats because it offers privileged insights into the workings of the human mind. In interpreting Sympathy as one of the latest installments in an ongoing campaign asserting the special status of novels in a digitalized media environment, the chapter demonstrates how narratological analysis can be fused with media-ecological and media-archeological approaches.

Abstract

This chapter reflects on the status of novels in the age of social media by examining Olivia Sudjic’s Sympathy (2017) as a case study. Hailed as “the first great Instagram novel” by reviewers, Sympathy offers a meditation on the impact of social media on subjectivity and intimacy. The chapter examines how narrative techniques are employed to reflect on wide-spread hopes and fears concerning the digitalization of communication. It then complements this discussion with a historical perspective, arguing that by focusing on the interplay between media and identity, Sudjic’s book updates a double claim which is as old as the genre of the novel: that the media we consume have a formative impact on who we are, and that narrative fiction deserves a prominent place in a hierarchy of different media formats because it offers privileged insights into the workings of the human mind. In interpreting Sympathy as one of the latest installments in an ongoing campaign asserting the special status of novels in a digitalized media environment, the chapter demonstrates how narratological analysis can be fused with media-ecological and media-archeological approaches.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents v
  3. A Tale of Two Concepts: Ansgar Nünning at Sixty 1
  4. Stories of Dangerous Life in the Post- Trauma Age: Toward a Cultural Narratology of Resilience 15
  5. Mind the Narratives: Towards a Cultural Narratology of Attention 37
  6. The End of the World (as We Know It)? – Cultural Ways of Worldmaking in Contemporary Post-Apocalyptic Narratives 57
  7. Plumbing Distant Spatiotemporal Scales: Towards an Econarratology of Planetary Memory in Narratives of the Global South 75
  8. Narrative Forms in the Age of the Anthropocene: Negotiating Human-Nonhuman Relations in Global South Novels 91
  9. Fact, Fiction, and Everything in-between: Strategies of Reader Activation in Postcolonial Graphic Narratives 109
  10. ‘It’s Not Our Opinion, It’s the Opinion of Our Roles’ – Fremdverstehen Revisited or: Where Foreign Language Education and Narratology Can Meet 129
  11. Narrative and Visual Resources of Culture in Contemporary Indigenous Children’s Books from Australia 149
  12. Troubling Justice: Narratives of Revenge 165
  13. Erin Burnett in Mali: Bardic Television and the Genealogy of Cultural Narratology 185
  14. New Media Narratives: Olivia Sudjic’s Sympathy and Identity in the Digital Age 199
  15. The ‘Death’ of the Unreliable Narrator: Toward a Functional History of Narrative Unreliability 215
  16. Odyssean Travels: The Migration of Narrative Form (Homer – Lamb – Joyce) 241
  17. A European Storyteller? Collective Narration in John Berger’s Into Their Labours 269
  18. Brexit as Cultural Performance: Towards a Narratology of Social Drama 293
  19. Contributors 321
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110654370-012

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents v
  3. A Tale of Two Concepts: Ansgar Nünning at Sixty 1
  4. Stories of Dangerous Life in the Post- Trauma Age: Toward a Cultural Narratology of Resilience 15
  5. Mind the Narratives: Towards a Cultural Narratology of Attention 37
  6. The End of the World (as We Know It)? – Cultural Ways of Worldmaking in Contemporary Post-Apocalyptic Narratives 57
  7. Plumbing Distant Spatiotemporal Scales: Towards an Econarratology of Planetary Memory in Narratives of the Global South 75
  8. Narrative Forms in the Age of the Anthropocene: Negotiating Human-Nonhuman Relations in Global South Novels 91
  9. Fact, Fiction, and Everything in-between: Strategies of Reader Activation in Postcolonial Graphic Narratives 109
  10. ‘It’s Not Our Opinion, It’s the Opinion of Our Roles’ – Fremdverstehen Revisited or: Where Foreign Language Education and Narratology Can Meet 129
  11. Narrative and Visual Resources of Culture in Contemporary Indigenous Children’s Books from Australia 149
  12. Troubling Justice: Narratives of Revenge 165
  13. Erin Burnett in Mali: Bardic Television and the Genealogy of Cultural Narratology 185
  14. New Media Narratives: Olivia Sudjic’s Sympathy and Identity in the Digital Age 199
  15. The ‘Death’ of the Unreliable Narrator: Toward a Functional History of Narrative Unreliability 215
  16. Odyssean Travels: The Migration of Narrative Form (Homer – Lamb – Joyce) 241
  17. A European Storyteller? Collective Narration in John Berger’s Into Their Labours 269
  18. Brexit as Cultural Performance: Towards a Narratology of Social Drama 293
  19. Contributors 321
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