About this Issue

Abstract

While the links between narrative and identity have long been established, we are only beginning to understand the ways in which digitial media influence, challenge and possibly also facilitate individual and collective self-fashioning. In this issue of DIEGESIS, three articles explore forms and implications of identity formation in videogames, on Instagram and in shared blogs.

Hans-Joachim Backe and Jan-Noël Thon investigate how narrative videogames like The Stanley Parable and The Beginner’s Guide position their players in relation to avatars, narrators, and authors, going on to demonstrate that narrative mediation and metareferentiality in these games approach a degree of complexity comparable to that in literary fiction. Matías Martínez and Antonius Weixler analyse the tensions between (alleged) authenticity and banality surfacing in “plandid” representations of the self which utilize Google’s “selfie spots” (favourite selfie locations identified through Instagram profiles) and Snapchat’s Stories. Sebastian Löwe’s contribution scrutinizes the practices of influencers on Instagram from a narratological perspective, thus providing insights into the media structure of this social networking service as well as the visual and rhetorical strategies of these influencers. Finally, Ida Melander, in a contribution to current debates on narrative medicine, focuses on how sharing an Instagram account makes it easier for five women suffering from endometriosis to come to terms with this chronic disorder.

This issue is completed with an interview with Sylvie Patron, Professor of French Language and Literature at the Université Paris Diderot / Université de Paris, France, in our “My Narratology” section, and with Christine Schwanecke’s review of Jan Horstmann’s recent proposal of a Narratology of Theatre.

We hope you enjoy the read.