Ephemerality in the digital world: Estonian case studies of digital literature and digital literary heritage projects

Ephemerality is a notion that has become relevant in analyzing digital cultural phenomena. Initially, the notion ephemera was used to denote the fragmented documents of everyday life. However, during the spread of contemporary digital culture, the notion of ephemerality has been widely used in discussing the production and reception of social media, digital literary and art works etc. Such cultural phenomena could be characterized as temporary and having a short lifespan. The objective of the present article is to examine the representation of ephemerality in case studies of Estonian digital culture, and to ask whether ephemerality could be considered a category of criticism in the study of representations of digital culture. For finding answers we examine in our article two different types of manifestations of digital culture in Estonia: digital literature created by Estonian authors, and digital literary heritage projects carried out in Estonia, which are presented as network-based interactive information environments. As a result of our research we conclude that we can analyze these examples of digital literature and digital literary historical projects in the context of ephemerality indeed. Thus, we argue, ephemerality is one of the essential notions which can be used in analyzing digital culture.