Pelikielty

Pelikielty is a term used in media studies to describe a distributed storytelling practice that arises in online communities. It refers to the process by which participants create, curate, and remix short narrative fragments into a shared, evolving canon across multiple platforms, often spanning text, images, and video.

Origin and scope exist largely in discourse about contemporary digital culture, and the term is a relatively recent coinage. Definitions vary by community, but the common thread is a focus on participatory authorship where power and authorship are distributed among many contributors rather than centralized in a single creator.

Characteristics of pelikielty include collaboration, iterative development, and high intertextuality. Narratives are built piece by piece, with contributors adding new elements, revising earlier ones, and linking related content through cross-posting and tagging. The approach favors accessibility, inviting new participants to join without formal gateways, and often results in a polyphonic, non-linear storytelling experience rather than a fixed, linear plot.

Applications can be found in fan communities, grassroots journalism, and educational contexts that seek to teach media literacy and collaborative writing. In practice, pelikielty enables the emergence of a communal memory that reflects diverse perspectives and constantly evolves as new contributions appear.

Reception has been mixed. Proponents see pelikielty as a democratic form of cultural production that empowers audiences to shape narratives. Critics warn of potential canonical ambiguity, moderation challenges in large communities, and the risks of misattribution or fragmentation when contributions diverge from shared understandings.

See also: participatory culture, collaborative storytelling, fan fiction, intertextuality.