Fashioning Value: The Work of Identity in the Age of Digital Reproduction

Abstract

The traditional notions of value rooted in the system of physical print publication have been irrevocably altered by the emergence of electronic publication. Where the value of the book could once be easily quantified as a tangible product which contained and conferred various forms of value, this value has now been challenged by the proliferation of digital products. Contemporary studies of literary value have so far been dominated by the theories of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and his distinctions of capital value, and while his theories are a productive means of exploring the problem of distinguishing value, digitization lessens the necessity for and value of the traditional institutional imprimatur which Bourdieu predominantly focuses on. This is so because digital technology has given writers an unprecedented ability to engage directly in mass public discourse and for readers to circumvent intended modes of reading. My thesis thus explores how value has been redefined in the digital age by questioning whether the digital literary paradigm is not altogether unlike the print-based one. By treating all aspects of each paradigm as information, be it the text or identity, my thesis conducts a meta-analysis of the social and cultural operations underlying the evaluation and evolution of value in the field of literature.