The symposium (though I am more inclined to call it a lecture this week) challenged our pre-conceived notions of story. Adrian attempted to explain his reasoning behind why stories must have a beginning, middle, and end. According to him, everything relates back to Marshall McLuhan’s quote “the medium is the message”, or better yet; the medium restricts the message.
In my humble opinion I do not wholeheartedly agree with this. I’m much more inclined to agree with Betty’s suggestion that Aristotle proffered a narrative must contain a beginning, middle and end. Folklore was not necessarily written on paper; dreamtime stories were traditionally passed on by word of mouth. Yet they still have some notion of ending or “closure”. However, I was unaware of the materiality of language and it’s influence on content. Particularly surprising was how rhyme may subvert reason. This is something I’d like to explore further, perhaps in another post.
I do agree that the internet is dissimilar to traditional platforms used for storytelling (such as books and magazines). Although personally I view the internet as a catalogue of different things. Yes, it does not strictly possess an explicit “beginning” and “end” as a whole, yet within this “space” (for lack of a better word) there are microcosms which essentially mimic traditional mediums. Take this blog post, for example. Here is a space which may continue on for as long as I want it to, but at some point I’m going to stop writing and post it. Then it will end. Just as an author writing a novel will at some point stop writing, and the book will be printed.
Maybe I need to think more laterally about online content, but then again this is just my opinion I am expressing. And isn’t that what a blog is for?
