Introduction
Both the printed book and the electronic hypertext methods of presenting text have deep implications about the way that we regard not only texts, but also knowledge. For example, the linear order of texts implies that we do (or should) think in a linear and hierarchical fashion. I hope to explore some of the notions implicit in the two technologies of print and electronic text, specifically focusing on the implications for ideas of author and authority.
Throughout this essay, text will refer to the essence of the message to be conveyed (whatever that is), separate from the form in which it is presented. Hypertext, though, will be discussed both as a form (a method of organization using electronic links to connect sections of text) and as a thing (the document layed out in using the hypertextual method of organization). One method of distributing hypertextual documents is through use of the World Wide Web.
It is my contention that presenting
a text in book form implies that knowledge is like a book: stable,
reified, and linear; presenting a text in hypertext format gives
us a very different picture of the nature of knowledge. The hypertext
suggests that knowledge is changeable, that we think by association,
and that the acts of reading and writing are intertwined, rather
than separate.2
The printed book
The traditional method of relaying
knowledge, at least for the last few hundred years, has been the
book. Books reflect certain things about the nature of knowledge
and how knowledge is (and should be) used.3 Traditional texts are
bound in time and space; they are printed at one point and are
unchanging, as well as being constrained by page length and design.
The book also implies that the gulf between the writer and the
reader cannot be bridged. Books are also viewed as autonomous;
they are bound as a separate, discrete and unique contribution
to the world's knowledge. They are inherently sequential, giving
the author control over the order the book is to be read.
The text as stable
The ultimate role of the author of a book is as the creator of a stable text. Jay David Bolter points out, "Through the technology of printing, the author and the editor exercise absolute control over the text: nothing they do can be undone after publication."4 Although the physical paper may deteriorate, until then, the text remains the same, and in the same order, no matter how many times the book is read.
This represented a change from the
manuscript form, where changes could easily be introduced (intentionally
or by error) each time the manuscript was copied. The text was
not viewed a stable and inviolate entity. But with the advent
of the printing press, multiple copies of the same book were identical,
so that readers could have the same (or similar) experiences of
the text. Ilana Snyder points out that "In the conceptual
space of a printed book, writing is fixed and controlled by the
author: that space is defined by bound volumes that sometimes
exist in thousands of identical copies."5
The author as deity
Not only does a printed book encourage us to view text as stable, books encourage us to see the text as something separate from the act of reading. The text is already complete, we passively enter into the world that is on the page. The author is the sole creator of this world, and the reader enters and accepts it. Bolter says, "In fact, taking the text as a heterocosm only enhances the authority of the author, who serves as a kind of deity for this world. It suggest a passive reading in which the reader 'loses himself' in the world of the story."6
Printed books also reinforce, through their form, the separation between writer and author. In a printed book, notes made by a reader in the margin are eternally resigned to remain just that: marginalia. Unlike manuscripts, where notes written in the margins have the same status as the writing itself (and may, in later copies, be incorporated into the manuscript), books differentiate between the author's words and the reader's comments. The author, then, is the source of all meaning. "By ensuring that the reader cannot enter into the space the text occupies, printing encouraged worshipful reading."7
While modern printing methods allowed
more people to have access to books, it made it more difficult
to get a text into circulation in the first place. According to
Bolter, printed works "made authors special by providing
them with a writing space not available to other literate men
and women. It is no accident that the age of printing became obsessed
with assigning authorship and verifying texts."8
The text as an entity
Books, i.e. printed pages bound together,
encourage readers to think of the text as a finite and discrete
entity. Books imply that knowledge is finite. There are only
a certain number of pages to a book, so all the important knowledge
on a topic must be able to fit in those 300-some pages. Presenting
a text in book form also makes us think of it as an entity in
and of itself, separate from all other texts. Each bit of knowledge
(a book) is self contained and not related to the other discrete
bits of knowledge. We accumulate knowledge by building up stacks
(libraries) of these individual bits. The printed book reifies
knowledge. Books are something we can hold, something that we
can see, and something that we can touch. We come to identify
the book with the text (and the knowledge) that it contains.
The text as linear
Books are both hierarchical and linear.
With the exception of encyclopedias and other reference works,
it is assumed that a text will be read straight through from the
first to the last page. The table of contents, "a hierarchical
description of the contents of the book,"9 sets out the organization
in outline form. Generally, chapters relate the main chunks of
information; within that structure, each section of a chapter
and then each paragraph is subordinate. Also, the author sets
out his/her arguments under the assumption that the reader will
have read them in context; that is, the reader will have read
the last point of the argument and will be going on to read the
following point as well. The modern methods of rhetoric and argumentation
assume a linear and hierarchical structure. Bolter says, "…today,
all of our major forms of non-fiction--the essay, the treatise,
the report--are expected to be hierarchical in organization as
they are linear in presentation."10
Hypertext
The move from printed books to hypertext
has changed the way we think of texts and knowledge. Hypertext
allows for a new way of viewing authority in a text, deprivileging
the author as the source of a text's authority. The form is virtual,
and each reading brings not only a different meaning, but a different
text altogether. While not yet limitless, hypertexts remove many
of the boundaries imposed by the printed and bound page. In doing
this, it suggests that knowledge does not rely on closure, as
it did in the book. In the brave new world of hypertext, the
author must relinquish at least some control over the text, resulting
in a collaboration between reader and writer and a new definition
of authority in texts.
The text in flux
Hypertexts are not stable. Even the method of presentation is unstable. The electronic medium encourages us to think of text as being in flux. Also, electronic text is virtual; the words displayed on the screen are only a representation of the document. Bolter explains that
It is also much easier to delete
electronic text. Touching just one button can make a document
disappear permanently. The printed text is much harder to destroy.
We must burn or shred a book to destroy its text. Unlike the
printed book, which encouraged us to think of the text as an object,
the electronic medium separates the text from its manifestations
(on the screen). The text is virtual rather than real, so it
is more difficult to consider it as a stable entity.
The text as network
A hypertext's instability comes from both its form and its organization. A hypertext does not have a set linear or hierarchical form. Each reading brings a different text, organized in a different manner. Most true hypertexts (as opposed to a linear text which has been put into hypertext format) allow the reader to travel many paths through the text. The author can provide guidelines (mostly in the form of if/then statements) about what choices the reader will have at certain points in the reading of the text, but there are multiple paths available. In some hypertexts, even making the same choice on the same screen (i.e. clicking on a certain word) may bring different results depending on what screens the reader had visited or not visited previously.
This allows the reader to have more control, but also undermines the author's ability to set out the proper (and only) way to read a text. The author of a book can (and does) assume that the reader begins at the first page and moves sequentially through the text to the final page. The writer of a hypertext can make no such assumptions. The readers may have arrived at a certain node from multiple directions. Brent points out some of the implications for the author and for the reader of such a text.
Generally, hypertexts are set up as a network or web of related information. There are nodes (or screens of text) with links between them. In discussing how he organized his hypertext document, Brent says, "The text took shape around several centres of gravity, sites of attraction if you will, that tended to pull certain nodes into closer relationships than others… most of the nodes in each cluster seem to connect across to nodes in other clusters as well."13 In this arrangement, the reader can follow links to nodes that are "clustered" together, or they can follow links to nodes in a different cluster, or if the hypertext is displayed on the World Wide Web, even follow links "out" of the document to related nodes.
Not all hypertexts allow the reader
to have free reign. Nancy Kaplan notes that some hypertexts,
especially "early examples of hypertextual fiction…
[do] place conditions on the accessibility of particular bits
of the story. If a reader has accessed a certain set of texts,
then the texts in the restricted set become available. If the
reader has not, then the restricted set remains closed to her."14
In fact, hypertext can be used to impose even more order than
a printed book. Hypertext (the method of organizing through links)
can create the ultimate linear text--where each section of text
can only be accessed from the preceding section or screen. Although
the author of book usually intends for it to be read in order,
the reader certainly can open up to any page and read out of order
if he or she wishes. Despite these uses of hypertext, the main
goal of hypertext is to allow methods of organization and presentation
of text that go beyond linearity. A text written to be presented
as a hypertext normally is organized as a network, rather than
as a line, so there is no standard order in which to read the
sections. Each reading brings a new text, with new meaning.
The implications of form
Form itself can have a great impact on the way we think and write. Brent relates "…Richard Coe's assertion that form is heuristic--that certain forms focus the writer on certain modes of thought. The five-paragraph theme, Coe notes, has spawned generations of students who think that there are exactly three reasons for everything."15 Just as the form of a book implies that we write (and therefore think) in a linear, organized manner, hypertext has implications for the way we write and think. In his discussion about writing his hypertext document, Brent says
Landow makes similar comments on the frustrations of returning to print world after writing hypertexts. "Such frustrations," he says, "derive from repeated recognitions that effective argument requires closing off connections and abandoning lines of investigation that hypertextuality would have made available."17 He points out that he also created a hypertext version of the book he was writing; the hypertext had many more possible connections. The book form required that the argument be linear and that certain relevant (but not central) information be omitted to give the idea that the text is an ordered, unified whole.
It is important to note that there may be grave consequences (too extensive to be explored here) on the traditional rhetorical argument. It has been pointed out (by Brent and others) that Western conceptions of argument hinge on linearity. Without this constraint, argument as we know it might fall apart.18
Landow continues, "...I realize
that selection is one of the principles of effective argument.
But why does one have to write texts in this way?"19 In
fact, hypertexts do not place the same limits on a text that the
printed book does.
The text as unlimited
A hypertext is not limited in the sense that a book is. Only certain information can be included in a linear argument. The network organization allows for multiple arguments to branch out. The reader can choose to read only one of the lines of thought, or explore all (or even none) of them. Hypertext, especially hypertext displayed on the World Wide Web, also allows the reader to access information that is not a part of the text proper. Links and connections can be made "out" of the document and into related materials, written by others. This makes us rethink not only the definition of texts (as singular items with a single author) but also reduces the control of (and respect for) the author. As we widen the scope of what is meant by text, it is difficult to know where to stop. Landow relates Foucault's discussion on this topic, saying "one can remove limits on textuality, permitting it to expand, until Neitzsche, the edifying philosopher, becomes equally the author of The Gay Science and laundry lists and other such trivia--as indeed he was."20
Texts are also constrained by limits
of pages that can be easily bound or carried around. Hypertexts,
in this sense, are even more constrained--they can only be read
on a computer. But as computers get smaller and smaller, soon
it will probably be possible to take your laptop outside and read
a hypertext under a tree as easily as you can read a print novel.
The distance between reader and writer
Just as hypertext calls for a reexamination of what is meant by text, hypertext requires a new view of the reader/writer relationship. In hypertext, the two are brought closer together, but, as Landow points out, this "infringes upon the power of the writer, removing some of it and granting it to the reader. One clear sign of such transference of authorial power appears in the reader's abilities to choose his or her way through the metatext, to annotate text written by others, and to create links between documents written by others."21
A hypertext also brings the reader and writer closer together by giving equal footing to the text, notes by the author and notes by the reader. Many hypertexts allow readers to add their own notes and links. Such citations often have equal or similar status as the author's original links and comments.
Landow continues by explaining that, while the reader cannot change the hypertext, the process of making comments "does narrow the phenomenological distance that separates individual documents from one another in the worlds of print and manuscript. In reducing the autonomy of the text, hypertext reduces the autonomy of the writer."22
The reader/writer distinction also blurs as readers become more conscious of and active in their role in reading a hypertext. Bolter points out that the computer "makes visible the contest between author and reader that in previous technologies has gone on out of sight, 'behind' the page."23 A reader of a hypertext, at the end of each node, must make a choice about what information he or she wants to see next. This forces the reader to focus on the format of the text, rather than the text itself. Bolter says, "The capacity of electronic text ironically to comment on itself keeps the reader from falling too far or too long into passivity."24
The new relationship of reader and
writer is more of a partnership than the passage of the words
of the deity (author) to the subject (reader). To achieve this,
the author must cede some control over the text, and the reader
must take a more active role in making meaning.
Conclusion
The printed page, we have seen, implies
that we know the world in a very organized manner. Knowledge
is limited; it is gained by a single person and related to others
in a linear, hierarchical way. If we accept the new, hypertextual
implications of knowledge, we must see knowledge as a network
of related information. In this view, we are all active in exploring
(and making) the connections between areas of knowledge. These
connections are unending, for hypertext resists closure, encouraging
us find link upon link, spiraling outward until all knowledge
is related.25
2 The implications for knowledge gleaned from examining the printed book and the hypertext cannot be directly compared or mapped onto one another. If this text were to be presented as a hypertext, there would be links from sections regarding books to other sections on books, as well as to sections on hypertext. It is difficult to impose a linear order on topic which is essentially non-hierarchical, but hopefully there will be some semblance of order apparent. Again, the temptation to includ e information that falls outside a strict linear progression has lead me to use footnotes extensively, in an attempt to maintain the appearance of linearity that the essay structure requires.
3 The discussion of the assumptions inherent in printed books follows from traditional (New Critical, structuralist, etc.) views of books and text. I have not attempted to take into account how more recent theories of criticism view the boo k. It has been argued elsewhere that the deconstructionists foresaw, in their views of the instability of printed text, the new electronic form of text (i.e. hypertext). Bolter says, "...radical literary theories... including reader-response criticism and deconstruction, still assume that readers will be reading printed books. But in fact, the electronic medium is a more natural place for the irreverent reading that they suggest"(Bolter, 152). Brent also suggests that hypertext illustrates "postmodernist assumptions about the instability of texts"(Brent, "Further Discussion").
4Jay David Bolter. Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. 1991. p149.
5 Ilana Snyder. Hypertext: The electronic labyrinth. Melbourne, Australia: Melbourne University Press. 1996. p3.
6 Bolter, 155.
7 Bolter, 152.
8 Bolter, 152.
9 Bolter, 112.
10 Bolter, 113.
11 Bolter, 42.
12 Brent, Doug. "A Further Discussion of the Rhetorical Form of This Text." Rhetorics of the Web. 13Brent, "Further Discussion."
14 Nancy Kaplan. "Hypertexts." Computer-Mediated Communication Magazine, Volume 2, Number 3, March 1, 1995, page 13. 15Brent, "Further Discussion."
16Brent, "Further Discussion."
17 Landow, 80.
18For further exploration of this, see 19Landow, 81-82.
20 Landow, 74.
21 Landow, 71.
22 Landow, 71-72.
23 Bolter, 154.
24 Bolter, 155.
25It is important to note here that an actual hypertext would most likely not have a conclusion. There are many ways into a hypertext, and just as many ways out.
Bolter, Jay David. Writing Space:
The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing. Hillsdale,
New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 1991.
Brent, Doug. "A Further Discussion
of the Rhetorical Form of This Text." Rhetorics of the
Web. <http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/2.1/features/brent/thistext.htm>
(Oct. 25, 1997).
Kaplan, Nancy. "Hypertexts."
Computer-Mediated Communication Magazine, Volume 2, Number
3, March 1, 1995, page 13. <http://sunsite.unc.edu/cmc/mag/1995/
mar/hyper/Hypertexts_601.html> (Oct. 25, 1997)
Landow, George. Hypertext: The
Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology.
Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.
Snyder, Ilana. Hypertext: The
electronic labyrinth. Melbourne, Australia: Melbourne University
Press, 1996.