Theories of Texts and Technology

I had some trouble with Landow’s Hypertext 3.0 mostly because it presumes/argues something new is happening within hypertext when, as we’ve said, language itself is associational. Reading is always associational. And active. And co-creative. (Of course Landow talked about hypertext as much more than all that too.) In Manovich, it seems we get a clearer account of what is already accomplished through language and what is accomplished through the process of linking.

Manovich notes that “All… art is ‘interactive’…. Ellipses in literary narration, missing details of objects in visual art, and other representational ’shortcuts’ require the user to fill in missing information” (56). He notes a “danger that we will interpret ‘interaction’ literally… at the expense of psychological interaction. The psychological process of filling-in, hypothesis formation, information recall, and identification” (57). This danger describes exactly where I had trouble with Landow. Hypertext can be a wonderful thing–but it does not replace that psychological interaction, because there is no way to “externalize and objectify the mind” as it functions through that process–at least not yet (57). Manovich goes on to write that when we do follow “pre-programmed, objectively existing associations” we “are asked to mistake the structure of somebody else’s mind for our own” (61).

Later, as Manovich discusses the idea of Selection, he points again to hypertext authoring, which “encourages the creation of texts that consist entirely of pointers to other texts that are already on the Web. One does not have to add any original writing; it is enough to select from what already exists” (127). This is obviously one end on the spectrum of possibilities for hypertext, but Manovich takes a strong position as to what counts as “original writing.” Some would say that “compositing” writings in hypertext is original, much like montage. Hypertext invariavbly raises issues of what counts as new/original/authoring, and this is part of what comes up when we talk about assigning hypertext to students.

As for a question, I am drawn to a particular section where Manovich writes, “While it is probably possible to invent a new rhetoric of hypermedia that will use hyperlinking not to distract the reader from the argument (as is often the case today), but rather to further convince her of an argument’s validity, the sheer existence and popularity of hyperlinking exemplifies the continuing decline of the field of rhetoric in the modern era” where it is “radically reduced… to just two figures–metaphor and metonymy” (77). A few questions here:

1. does hyperlinking distract the reader? Only when executed poorly, or always?
2. how might hyperlinking be employed specifically in the context of an argument/persuasive piece? How is that different than hypertext used in informational writing?
3. does the existence of hypertext really exemplify a decline of rhetoric? or maybe just a different application of rhetorical principles?

Manovich’s assertion regarding a decline in rhetoric echoes Clay Spinuzzi’s call to action wherein “rhetoric becomes an essential area of expertise; direct connections mean that everyone can and should be a rhetor”  (qtd. 144).

Works Cited:

Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001.

Spinuzzi, Clay. Network: Theorizing Knowledge Work in Telecommunications. New York: Cambridge U P, 2008.