Social Sciences in China, 2022

Vol. 43, No. 1, 2022

The Generative Mechanism of Online Narratives and the Intertextuality of Their Group Communication

Sui Yan and Tang Zhongmin

Abstract：The complexity of online narratives and their important influence on events, attitudes, and emotions in society make visible certain limitations in the explication of such narratives found in traditional narrative theory. Their generative mechanism provides the logical starting point for understanding online communication. Event correlatives, text assemblage and specific texts, as the organic structure of online narratives, shape the intertextual existence and dynamic accumulation of the online text. A universal multidirectional co- construction forms around event correlatives and between specific texts and the pre-text, post-text and synchronous text within the text assemblage, while the textual object, the communicating subject and the online group communication context together build up the interpretive system of online narrative meanings. The generative mechanism and vitality of online narratives not only provide guarantees for the active nature of online communication, but also become a huge variable in social development, profoundly influencing social communication and even our way of thinking.

Keywords: online narrative, event correlatives, text assemblage, intertextuality, narratology