Netprov
{{Short description|Networked, improvised literature written collaboratively on the internet}}
{{Infobox literary genre|name=Netprov|distinctive_features=Networked, improvised literature|relatedgenres=Hypertext fiction, Blog fiction, Interactive fiction, Digital poetry, Computer-generated literature, Cell phone novels, Instapoetry, Cybertext, Creepypasta, Fan fiction|subgenrelist=}}
Netprov is "networked, improvised literature"{{Cite book |last=Wittig |first=Rob |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1289259024 |title=Netprov : networked improvised literature for the classroom and beyond |date=2021 |others=Amherst College. Press, Michigan Publishing |isbn=978-1-943208-29-6 |location=Amherst, Massachusetts |pages=9–10 |oclc=1289259024}} or collaborative literary improvisations performed on the internet. The word netprov is a portmanteau of "networked" and "improv" as in improvisational theatre. Netprov is considered a genre of electronic literature.
Background
Netprov is explicitly related to improvisational theatre, and also has a lot in common with live action role-playing games. Rob Wittig, one of netprov's originators, was also involved in Invisible Seattle, a novel created in the early 1980s by a group of "literary workers" who gathered stories from Seattle residents, in part using an early online bulletin board system.{{Cite book |last=Rettberg |first=Scott |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1240305993 |title=The Cambridge companion to twenty-first century American fiction |date=2021 |others=Joshua L. Miller |isbn=978-1-108-83827-6 |location=Cambridge |pages=114 |chapter=Digital Fiction |oclc=1240305993}}{{Cite book |last=Wittig |first=Rob |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/29185107 |title=Invisible rendezvous : connection and collaboration in the new landscape of electronic writing |date=1994 |publisher=Wesleyan University Press |others=IN.S.OMNIA |isbn=0-8195-5275-5 |location=[Middletown, Conn.] |oclc=29185107}}
An early example of netprov was Rob Wittig's Grace, Wit, and Charm (2011), which centred around a fictional company that offered services to people who wanted help making their online avatars more successful. Participants took the roles of workers in the company and clients writing in to request services, and the netprov was performed in online writing, in weekly theatre performances and streaming.
While many netprovs are mostly playful, like #1WkNoTech, some offer powerful political critique, such as Occupy MLA, a netprov held during the Modern Language Association conference in 2011.{{Cite journal |last=Berens |first=Kathi Inman |date=2015 |title=Live/Archive: Occupy MLA |url=http://hyperrhiz.io/hyperrhiz11/essays/live-archive-occupy-mla.html |journal=Hyperrhiz: New Media Cultures |issue=11 |pages=1 |doi=10.20415/hyp/011.e03|doi-access=free }} I Work for the Web is another example that critiques the exploitation of online gig workers.{{Cite journal |last1=Rettberg |first1=Scott |last2=Coover |first2=Roderick |date=2020-08-01 |title=Addressing Significant Societal Challenges Through Critical Digital Media |url=http://electronicbookreview.com/essay/addressing-significant-societal-challenges-through-critical-digital-media/ |access-date=2023-04-29 |journal=Electronic Book Review |language=en-US |doi=10.7273/1ma1-pk87}}
Scholarship
Netprov is included in many discussions of electronic literature. Lyle Skains describes netprov as "online, collaborative, real-time, carnivalesque performances".{{Cite book |last=Skains |first=R. Lyle |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1341268134 |title=Neverending stories : the popular emergence of digital fiction |date=2023 |isbn=978-1-5013-6491-4 |location=New York |oclc=1341268134}} Scott Rettberg notes that netprov is told in real-time, using social media, and are collaborative and interactive in the sense that readers can join in as participants.{{Cite book |last=Rettberg |first=Scott |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1038024013 |title=Electronic literature |date=2019 |isbn=978-1-5095-1681-0 |location=Cambridge, UK |oclc=1038024013}}
Wittig and Marino have also contributed chapters about netprov to a number of scholarly anthologies on electronic literature.{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1261364273 |title=The community and the algorithm : a digital interactive poetics |date=2021 |others=Andrew Klobucar |isbn=978-1-64889-311-7 |location=Wilmington, Delaware, United States |oclc=1261364273}}{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1007134750 |title=The Bloomsbury handbook of electronic literature |date=2017 |others=Joseph Tabbi |isbn=978-1-4742-3026-1 |location=London |oclc=1007134750}}{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/895161884 |title=Creative writing in the digital age : theory, practice, and pedagogy |date=2015 |others=Michael Dean Clark, Trent Hergenrader, Joseph Rein |isbn=978-1-4725-7410-7 |location=London |oclc=895161884}}{{Cite book |last=O’Sullivan |first=James |url=http://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/electronic-literature-as-digital-humanities-contexts-forms-practices |title=Electronic Literature as Digital Humanities: Contexts, Forms, & Practices |date=2021 |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |isbn=978-1-5013-6350-4 |doi=10.5040/9781501363474.ch-027|s2cid=230536619 }}
Netprovs have also been taught at universities, both as a literary genre and as a classroom activity.{{Cite web |title=Syllabus |url=https://dma.criticalvideogamestudies.com/syllabus/ |access-date=2023-04-29 |website=Digital Media Aesthetics |language=en-US}}