Digital literature does not exist. Literariness viewed through the connotations of the new media imaginary

Résumé 0

The aim of this article is to examine the relationship between information literacy and digital literariness, i.e., what are the requisite skills for online writers? How do their technology skills form part of their authority? We hypothesize that the significance given to the technical aspect of digital works serves, first of all, a need to be legitimized, and not criteria of literariness. Whereas once the printed publisher occupied the position of a legitimizing authority, nowadays writers’ digital skills attest to the literary quality of a publication, which risks their work being under- or overvalued. Indeed, these digital skills are valued specifically according to the symbolic connotations associated with the use of certain tools and platforms. These connotations are becoming all the more important at a time when GAFAM appear to be imposing a new editorial monopoly based on tools and platforms requiring only basic technology skills. Widely adopted by writers, these new editorial systems (CMS, social networks) are clearing the way for an emerging generation whose digital literacy is far from on par with that of the previous generation. Could we be looking at a generation of “illiterate” writers as a result? Rather, this article will demonstrate the occurrence of a shift in the exact meaning of our “digital skills,” which are no longer based solely on technical knowledge, but also on a digital culture.