Narrative Theory in the Age of Algorithms: Rethinking Voice, Focalization, and Plot in Digital Contexts

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Assistant Professor of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Hakim Sabzevari University, Sabzevar, Iran

2 Instructor, Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Foreign Languages, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran.

10.22080/jlab.2026.30836.1001

Abstract

This article presents a systematized critical review of narrative theory in the age of algorithms, with special attention to how voice, focalization, and plot function in digital, interactive, and automated storytelling environments. It revisits classical narratology and places it in dialogue with research on hypertext and games, interactive digital narrative, computational and distant-reading methods, and scholarship on generative AI and platform curation. The review analyzes a core analytic corpus of approximately fifty-five works assembled through database searches and citation chaining, supplemented by a small number of clearly labeled preprints/working papers in fast-moving areas (e.g., generative AI and information-theoretic modeling). Organized in five movements, it (1) reconstructs classical accounts of voice, focalization, and plot as medium-independent structures; (2) traces their revision in interactive and ergodic forms; (3) surveys empirical and formal studies of AI-generated stories, narrative transportation, and information-theoretic models; (4) synthesizes how algorithms redistribute narrative agency across human and nonhuman actors; and (5) evaluates methodological and ethical stakes within global, intersectional debates. The article argues that algorithms do not make narratology obsolete but expose blind spots, especially infrastructural voice, platform-level focalization, and probabilistic plot. Beyond synthesis, it contributes (a) a “trace-based” way to operationalize infrastructural influence as textual and paratextual features, and (b) brief micro-cases that demonstrate how these concepts change what close reading can show in everyday algorithmic encounters. It concludes by proposing infrastructural, posthuman, and comparative research agendas for studying narrative under algorithmic conditions.

Keywords

References

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Journal of Literature Across Borders
Volume 1, Issue 1 - Serial Number 1
Winter/Spring
July 2026
Pages 67-94

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