[ISEA97] Panel: Hilmar Schmundt – Literature, Journalism, and the Telematic Society 2: Fact, Fiction, Faction; Converging Styles in Literature and Journalism in On-line Publications

Panel Statement

In the internet, the traditional publishing houses compete with newsgroups, alternative e-zines, commercial ad agencies, software-providers. News, hearsay, commentary, essays and conversation merge in one large medley ofvoices. Is there a new “third culture” of publications in the making, not unlike the “Little Mags”-fad in the sixties? What are the trade offs for publishers, what is the rationale for publishers and for students to publish on-line, what is the informational advantage for the readers? Are e-zines more interactive than paperbased zines – or should they? And what will the future bring: closed newsgroups, pay-per-view-newspapers, ad-infested factoid-collections? And: Most on-line-publications deal mainly with the net itself – but can a medium reflect itself, or is the need for paper-based net-criticism more important than the n-th e-zine?

  • Hilmar Schmundt M.A. (Germany) is editor at Zitty magazine, Berlin, writes for Die Zeit, Die Woche, Die Wochenzeitung, and is co-­editor of the e-zine Softmoderne Online—Elektrobriefe, die neueste Literatur betreffend (www.icf.de/softmoderne). Together with Stephan Porombka he is the organizer of Softmoderne, an annual electronic literature festival, now in its third year. He studied literature, journalism and geog­raphy in Freiburg i. Br., at UMass Amherst and at John-F.­Kennedy Institute in Berlin.