Consumers of popular culture or demanding dictators? The Lithuanian case

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to ponder upon the problem of narrative, genre and the reader’s cognitive characteristics or abilities to respond to the text in the realms of digital media and print literature. The influence of the digital medium on print literature is discussed drawing on the concept of narrative proposed by Marie-Laure Ryan. The examples of texts by Mantvydas Leknickas and Vytautas Martinkus reveal mutual relations between the digital medium and particular genres. In the context of Lithuanian literature, virtual space and ability to demonstrate creativity that awakens readers’ cognitive capacities can be treated as a background against which various new forms of print literature emerge. The reader’s role in contemporary literature is ambiguous as sometimes s/he appears as a dictator while on other occasions s/he turns into the consumer of digital products or even into the creator of the poet, as is the case with Leknickas. The dictator’s role is more vivid in the context of authorial genre selection: prose is more popular than poetry, and the novel is more involving and easier saleable than the short story.