This thesis considers how the digital medium and social networks affect the short story. I argue that digital short fiction has shown changes, such as signs of becoming more modular or briefer than its print counterparts, and that it has also reflected a shift to the personal or semi-autobiographical story. Digital short fiction has also been used increasingly to market a publisher’s or author’s name or non-digital works. I begin contextualizing this shift in Chapter 1 by analyzing different approaches to the study of the short story, including an overview of generic and historical scholarship, and I conclude with a working definition of the short story. In Chapter 2, I analyze early digital short fiction along with the themes of contemporary fiction in general that have been affected by digital media, social networks, and other changes. I also consider digital short fiction in the context of its publication media, postmodernism, and changes in communication in general. In Chapter 3, I verify these considerations with responses to questionnaires sent to writers of short fiction both on the Web and off. By studying these writers’ conceptions of the short story, preferred publication media, and writing habits, I build on the working definitions of the short story from Chapters 1 and 2. In Chapter 4, I consider the effects on the short story and conclude that we can update print-based conceptions of the short story to include born-digital short fiction and accommodate the contemporary shift in general to modularity, open source, social networks, and the focus on the self. Rather than establishing a concrete definition of what short fiction is at this time, I conclude that a better approach is to replace pre-defined categories with an acknowledgement that the short story is perhaps shifting closer to pre-print storytelling roots, although within the confines of current limitations such as copyright and the attention span of contemporary readers. Although we cannot fully quantify these changes at this time, I argue that they impact the short story and require scholars to consider its paratexts and publication media differently than in pre-Web years.

This thesis considers how the digital medium and social networks affect the short story. I argue that digital short fiction has shown changes, such as signs of becoming more modular or briefer than its print counterparts, and that it has also reflected a shift to the personal or semi-autobiographical story. Digital short fiction has also been used increasingly to market a publisher’s or author’s name or non-digital works. I begin contextualizing this shift in Chapter 1 by analyzing different approaches to the study of the short story, including an overview of generic and historical scholarship, and I conclude with a working definition of the short story. In Chapter 2, I analyze early digital short fiction along with the themes of contemporary fiction in general that have been affected by digital media, social networks, and other changes. I also consider digital short fiction in the context of its publication media, postmodernism, and changes in communication in general. In Chapter 3, I verify these considerations with responses to questionnaires sent to writers of short fiction both on the Web and off. By studying these writers’ conceptions of the short story, preferred publication media, and writing habits, I build on the working definitions of the short story from Chapters 1 and 2. In Chapter 4, I consider the effects on the short story and conclude that we can update print-based conceptions of the short story to include born-digital short fiction and accommodate the contemporary shift in general to modularity, open source, social networks, and the focus on the self. Rather than establishing a concrete definition of what short fiction is at this time, I conclude that a better approach is to replace pre-defined categories with an acknowledgement that the short story is perhaps shifting closer to pre-print storytelling roots, although within the confines of current limitations such as copyright and the attention span of contemporary readers. Although we cannot fully quantify these changes at this time, I argue that they impact the short story and require scholars to consider its paratexts and publication media differently than in pre-Web years.

The aim of this study is to examine and identify the different ways in which secondary and upper secondary school teachers perceive the use of fiction to teach English as well as their beliefs about the outcome or benefits of doing so. Five secondary and upper secondary school teachers in Sweden who teach English as a foreign language were interviewed about how they use fiction to teach English. A phenomenographic cross-case analysis was used to analyse the data. The teachers’responses were categorized and labelled into two main themes, that is, teaching methods and benefits of using fiction to teach English. However, the teachers’ descriptions about the definition and medium of expressing fiction was first established. The data from the theme ‘teaching methods’ were later sorted, categorized, and labelled into six instructional strategies. The teaching strategies included: selecting authentic learning material for students; building knowledge about themes in the fictional works; using classroom discussions to support students' learning; encouraging students to use their previous knowledge and learning experiences to understand the content of the fictional works; using audio-visual aids to enhance students' understanding of themes in the fictional works; and designing tasks that reinforce learning. These strategies were common amongst all five teachers. However, there were some subtle differences in the teaching methods, caused by factors such as the students’ mastery of the English language, the English course(s) the teachers were teaching and the fictional material they were using to teach English. / Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka och identifiera de olika sätt på vilka högstadielärare och gymnasielärare uppfattar användningen av fiktion för att undervisa engelska samt deras uppfattning om fördelarna med att göra det. För att få insikter om detta intervjuades fem lärare som undervisar engelska som främmande språk på högstadiet och gymnasiet i Sverige. En fenomenografisk tvärfallsanalys användes som metod för dataanalys och lärarnas beskrivningar av vad fiktion betyder samt på vilket sätt den kan uttryckas framställdes. Lärarnas svar kategoriserades i två huvudteman och märktes som: undervisningsmetoder och fördelarna att undervisa engelska genom fiktion. Data från temat ’undervisningsmetoder’ sorterades, kategoriserades och delades in i sex undervisningsstrategier. Undervisningsstrategierna innefattar: att välja autentiskt undervisningsmaterial; att bygga upp kunskap om teman i de fiktiva verken; att använda klassrumsdiskussioner för att stödja elevernas lärande; uppmuntra eleverna att använda sina tidigare kunskaper och erfarenheter av lärande; använda audiovisuella hjälpmedel för att förbättra elevernas förståelse av teman i de fiktiva verken; utforma uppgifter som förstärker lärande. Dessa strategier var gemensammabland de fem lärarna. Det fanns dock några små skillnader i undervisningsmetoderna som orsakades av elevernas behärskning av det engelska språket, de engelska kurserna som lärarna undervisade i och de fiktiva materialen som de använde för att undervisa engelska.