Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.10, 2020

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

(Abstract)

Sui Yan and Tang Zhongmin

The complexity of online narratives and their important influence on events, attitudes, emotions, etc. in society reveal certain limitations in traditional narrative theory’s explication of such narratives. Their generative mechanism is the logical starting point for understanding online communication. Event correlation, text assemblage and specific texts, as the organic structure of online narratives, shape the intertextual existence and dynamic accumulation of layers of the online text. The universal multidirectional co-construction of textual meaning forms around correlated events and between specific texts and the pre-text, post-text and synchronous text within the textual 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 have also become a huge variable in social development, profoundly influencing social communication and even our way of thinking.