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ine our own self but also construct it (Fireman et al.
2003
, p. 5). In this text, we shall
be sharing these thoughts.
On another point, we were also saying earlier that digitalization implies that the
subject that narrates about themselves turns that self into a creative product. Before
looking in greater depth at the knowledge that supports this consideration, we
should make it clear that by 'creative product' we mean, as Cropley et al. (
2008
)
said, the result of a process that is not only new (in relation to what preceded it) but
also relevant and effective. A creative product surprises and gets noticed, but most
of all it seeks to satisfy a need. In fact, if there was no need, the act of creation would
merely be aesthetic. It is an original approach to the subject (Solomon et al.
1999
),
to oneself, that leads to a specifi c manifestation (Andreasen
1987
). Creativity, one
of the greatest forms for the expression of individuality (Bandura
1997
, p. 239),
makes our creation diverse, subtle even. As well as being creative in the manifesta-
tion of our persona, of the processes in which we are immersed and in the products
into which we are converted, the result of our creativity, our individual expression,
will have a social dimension: our public face (Runco
2007
).
The aim of this chapter is to sustain these ideas through the presentation and
discussion of the evidence provided by previous interdisciplinary research and the
authors that support it. As the reader will fi nd in the text, there is a large body of
knowledge that has come from different academic disciplines. As a whole, this lit-
erature suggests that the increase in narrations in computer networks, in times of the
'spectacularisation' of reality, is something that should not be ignored but should
instead be carefully observed due to its possible individual and cultural effects. In
this chapter, the data that has led to the construction of such a view will be gradually
and inductively presented.
5.2
Narrating One's Life
What do we understand narrative to mean in terms of this refl ection? We should deal
with this defi nition immediately. To do this, we shall fundamentally recur to narra-
tology and, within it, to structuralism. As we shall see, the defi nition of the concept
implies dealing with the inseparable relation between the creation of narratives, the
identity of the narrators and the conceptions that these have of times lived and nar-
rated. As already made clear, we believe that the act of creating and publishing one's
own narrative is not banal, but rather is full of meaning. In fact, as shall be driven
home throughout this epigraph, narrations are a refl ection of a form of individual
and collective consciousness of existence.
When defi ning narrative, it is useful to remember that the etymological origin of
the world is associated to the idea of knowing, of conveying information and its
function as an instrument for learning or showing the world to others (Tomascikova
2009
). The word 'narrative' comes from the Latin
narrat
(related, told) and from its
verbal form
narrare
, which is derived from
gnarus
(knowing). It is generally
