Philippine E-Journals

The article tries to answer the questions: What does the “information revolution” – ushered in by and through the medium of the internet – have to do with literature in general, and Philippine literature in particular? What distinct factors affect the conception, production, and reception of “online literatures” that critics/consumers of these literatures must be – at the very least – aware of? What challenges and possibilities await the Filipino litterateur and critic in the age of internet?

The author problematizes the issue of contextual and media-sensitive literary theorizing/criticism, and provides five prefatory guide-notes toward the formulation of an internet-specific literary framework, with the last note broaching on the implications of the possibility of creating “online literatures” to Philippine literary practices.

The five guide-notes highlighted and discussed in the article are as follows: 1) Online literature is composed of dynamic and interactive (audiovisual) texts operating in (cyber) spatio-temporal digital enclaves; 2) Online literature is mutable, transformable, and unstable; 3) Online literature allows for anonymous or group authorship; 4) Online literature’s addressees are “users”, and not simply “readers”; 5) Online literature allows for equalizing, networked, and democratized literary practices, politically profitable for postcolonial countries, such as the Philippines.