Technology, genres, and value change: Literary authors and artistic use of information technology

Information technology provides resources with which human actors can change the patterns of social action in which they participate. Studies of genre change have been among those that have focused on such change. Those studies, however, have tended not to focus on creative genres. Producers in creative genres often produce their work in an atmosphere with little or no central control and tend to hold values that set their work apart from work found in commercial settings. This study focuses on information technology use by literary authors and asks whether literary authors are likely to use information technology in ways that will reinforce or alter the traditional values seen in American literary publishing.