In this talk I'm going to induce a theory of medial reading from a range of empirical studies with readers of digital-born fiction. In particular, I will focus on medium-specific reading in VR as an environment that is known for its immersive, experiential qualities yet less for its affordances for literary fiction and verbal art. I consider what participants’ discursive responses to reading Randall Okita’s allofictional VR memoir, The Book of Distance, reveal about the mediality of reading in VR. I derive the concept of ambimediality from data that shows the blending of multi-, inter- and transmedial processing on the one hand and the ambivalent and ambient contingencies of medium-specific reading in VR on the other.

Digital evolution is largely driven by commercialisation, pushing technology ever forward even as great swathes of the global population are left behind with little access to necessary hardware, infrastructure, and skills. Digital fiction, historically, developed in different ways around the world, influenced by factors such as language, technological access, culture, and government policies. This talk will explore how a “postdigital” world has developed unique digital fiction traditions out of the human responses to barriers and inequalities.