Has social media killed the cultural star?

I could hardly believe my eyes when I read an article by the BBC, reporting that Shakespeare's romantic tragedy Romeo and Juliet is to be told across Twitter. The joint venture between Channel 4 and the RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company, philistines) will see "Such Tweet Sorrow" - ah, the witticism - being tweeted across the social network in 140-character chunks, due to go live on 12th April. Romeo and Juliet? On Twitter? Who the heck thought that up? Apparently Channel 4 have vowed to double their arts coverage budget to $6m, so maybe they're just trying to save the advertising costs. Will it really work, though? Who is going to see this insane "broadcast" and think, 'Oooh, Shakespeare is really great after all, innit?' I get it, I really do. Channel 4 getting down with the kids, making Romeo and Juliet a funky, real love story, in small doses so that the over-hyped, information overdosed ADHD ridden teenagers can process it, making Shakespeare cool. Of course, then they will be making sure they watch Channel 4 arts programmes, asking their parents for tickets to the RSC's next production of Hamlet, and begging their teachers to let them read a Shakespeare play a week for their GCSE English Literature. I thought all this stuff had been done before. Shorter versions of Shakespeare published for kids, along with stage performances of the same. Baz Lurhman made R&J sexy for a while in the 90's, thanks to Leonardo Di Caprio and Clare Danes as the star-cross'd lovers in his abridged, camp and West Side Story-esque film. How quickly we forget. I'm surprised it's taken so long for someone to dumb down Shakespeare even more, that's all. Will it work? Who knows. Can social networking promote the arts, or will using it in this way serve only to simplify literature, music and art, alienate those amongst us who enjoy these pursuits, and give the kids something else to sneer at?

It seems that people are starting to take seriously the idea that social media CAN be good for the arts. Manchester Digital Development Agency (MDDA)
have been running two-day courses, Understanding Social Media for the Arts, funded by Arts Council England. There is already a social networking site aimed at fans of classical music, www.dilettante.com. According to its founder Juliana Farha, the site aims to "lead the classical uprising", and open classical music up beyond Radio 3, and London concert halls. It is a place where people can not only chat and blog about classical music, but also post their own compositions and work, developing their career as well as friendships with fellow enthusiasts. For arty types, www.myartspace.com is the place to go, to connect with other artists, display work and generally keep in the loop about the contemporary art scene. If you love reading, you can join an online book club at www.shelfari.com, where people gather to see what other people are reading, discover new books and even build a virtual bookshelf to show off your books. Obviously, this may declassify itself as "the arts" if, say, your bookshelf consists entirely of Kerry Katona autobiographies and Dan Brown, but I guess any book is better than nothing at all.

In a different twist on promoting literature in the social media, try the concept of "Twitterature" for size. Yep, it's what you think it is - an amalgam of Twitter and literature for the new technological age. Penguin even offered two University of Chicago students a book deal based on this, eventually named "Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books, Now Presented In Twenty Tweets Or Less". Apparently, now that the Twitterati are used to reading literature in short bursts, writers are starting to self-publicise their work on Twitter.

I suppose that, being a woman of a certain age now and no longer young and hip, I just don't understand why people would want to read a novel in hyperactive two sentence chunks rather than sat down in a nice comfy armchair with a cup of tea and a chocolate Hobnob - and a proper, made-of-paper book. If I want to read Romeo and Juliet in small chunks, I'll have a wee break every five minutes. Or I could watch it on DVD and press pause between each character's part. See how daft that sounds. So why would anyone want to do it whilst surfing the net? Beats me. All I know is, I can't see how Tweeting one of our country's finest playwright's works will inspire anyone to read further, or go to the theatre. After all, once we're used to this method of delivery, all others will seem long-winded and tedious without the liberal dosage of ritalin to keep bums on seats.

But what do I know? I'm merely one of the fuddy-duddies who don't understand where it's all at with literature nowadays. The Dimwitterati, perhaps.