User:Andre Castro/2/thesis/outline

Thesis Outline

Abstract

I will use my thesis to investigate the artistic value of spam emails. I will argue that spam messages have cast a language of their own, and as a result deserve to be inscribed within the larger field of Digital Folklore. In order to prove my point I will begin to give an overview of spam: where it comes from, who writes, with what intentions. And will follow with an analyzes the language, grammar, structure, and narratives present in spam email messages.

Abstract in bullet points

Subject of investigation

spam emails - unsolicited emails, that employ a narrative plot to lure its receiver into providing personal information, such as bank account number or passwords, or deposit money in the spammer's account.

Aim (what)

• The elevation of spam to a artistic practice in its own right.
• Inscribe spam within the field of Digital Folklore

Argument (why)

• Spam has cast a language of its own, wich is both unique and identifiable character

Method (how)

• Analysis of its vocabulary, grammar, structure, and narratives.

Spam

• Burrell, Jena. 2012. 'Invisible Users: Youth in the Internet Cafés of Urban Ghana'. MIT Press. Cambridge / London. - Annotation
• Heyd, Theresa. 2008. 'Email Hoaxes: Form, function, genre ecology'. John Benjamins Publishing Company. Amsterdam / Philadelphia.

Electronic Literature=

• Goldsmith, Kenneth. 2011. 'Uncreative Writing: Managing Language in the Digital Age'. Columbia University Press. New York.
• Murray, Jannet. 1998. 'Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace'. MIT Press. Cambridge / London.
• Propp, Vladímir. 1929. 'Morphology of the Folk Tale Society and Indian University'

Para-literary texts

• Fuller, Matthew. 2000. "ATM". ShaKe Editions. London.

Digital Folklore

• Lialina, Olia; Espenschied, Dragan. 2009. "Digital Folklore Reader". merz & solitude.

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Leftovers

about transmedia narratives

transmedia narratives, that not only remain on a fictious realm, manage extrapolate to real world.

Considering spam stories as transmedia narratives, which extrapolate the fictious realm and can both challange and change reality. As a spam narrative is often based on real events, which has been previously accounted by other media, the spam messag becomes one more medium where the real event is narrated. By introducing new characters and pieces of information to the narrative, and the fact that it arrives to us as an email, which we tend not to associated with fictional narrative.