theory

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theory
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What well cover today

• Hypertext and critical theory
• Historical context (utopianism, tech boom)
• Claims made in 80s 90s
• Hypertext and poststructural theory
• Criticisms of this theory
• More mature and recent theory

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Context America 1980-96

• Technological utopianism
• Personal computing matures
• Silicon Valley, hacker culture
• Apples radical 1984 ad
• California Ideology
• Barlow Info wants to be free
• Wired heralds New Frontier Cyberspace

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Context America 1980-96

• Claims were made for internet as global force for
  democracy
• With every swell of the tech-revolutionary
  wave, there are three ideas that pop up
• 1 that massive and positive social change will
  emerge from the introduction of a single
  communications technology
• 2 that these changes will be caused by properties
  inherent to the technology and
• 3 that the revolution occurring is of a scale not
  seen for hundreds of years.
• Meanwhile, in the literary world

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Literary Theory

• Late 80s and early 90s humanities theorists
  discovered the computer.
• Classics English professors Bolter, Landow,
  Lanham, Moulthrop (right) saw it as radical new
  writing medium
• In hypertext, they saw the embodiment of the
  radical theory they were immersed in
  .poststructuralism.
• These theories had political as well as aesthetic
  effects

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Literary Theory

• What were these radical theories? Were going to
  look at some examples.

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Literary Theory

• The meaning of a sign can only be known in
  relation to other signs its difference from
  other signs.
• Meaning is eternally deferred through language,
  which is a vast network that never ends.

Derrida questioned our assumptions about how we
make meaning in the world .
The text is a differential network, a fabric of
traces referring endlessly to something other
than itself (Derrida)
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Literary Theory

• A text has many different meanings. We cannot
  control how a text will be received each reader
  and each reading will be different
• Death of the Author (Barthes, Foucalt)
• Authors intentions meaningless

The frontiers of a book are never clear-cut,
because it is caught up in a system of references
to other texts it is a node within a network
(Foucalt)
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Literary Theory

• Writing is a process of citation-situating

A page from Derridas Glas ?
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Hypertextual Derrida

• Snap! Perfect match with hypertext!
• When designers of computer software examine
  the pages of Glas, they encounter a hypertextual
  Derrida and when literary theorists examine
  Literary Machines, they encounter a
  poststructuralist Nelson (Landow)
• Both grew out of dissatisfaction with linearity
  (Landow)
• What are these claims?

Landow
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1. Hypertext dissolves the boundary between
reader and writer

• Empowered readers
• The interactive reader of the electronic word
  incarnates the responsive reader of whom we
  make so much (Lanham)
• We could say that there is no story at all there
  are only readings (Bolter)
• Joyce exploratory/constructive hypertexts
  wreaders

Michael Joyce
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2. Hypertext redefines narrative

• Hypertext has no beginning or end, no strict
  sequence of parts, no unified narrative.
• Hypertext, which challenges narrative and all
  literary forms based on linearity, calls into
  question ideas of plot and story current since
  Aristotle (Landow)

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3. Hypertext redefines text

• The open text vs unified text of print
• In hypertext there are no closed pages, no
  margins and footnotesall constituent elements
  become equivalent (Landow)

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4. Hypertext democratises knowledge

• Hypertext is anti hierarchical and democratic
• The digitization of the arts radically
  democratizes them (Lanham)
• Hypertext promotes collaborative learning
  (Johnson-Eilola)
• As our culture is moving from the printed book
  to the computer, it is also moving from a
  hierarchical social order to what we might call a
  network culture (Bolter).

Nelsons Computer Lib!
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5. Hypertext is more fluid and creative than
print

• The electronic word has no essence, no quiddity,
  no substance. It exists in potentia, as what it
  can become (Lanham).
• The screen text is fluid in the sense of being a
  text in process and the process itself (Snyder)
• Hypertext is based on the structure of thought
  itself fluid and changing (Nelson)

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6. Hypertext is an avant garde medium

• The emancipatory claims forwarded for hypertext
  can be roughly placed in a tradition of avant
  garde aesthetic theory which posits
  epistemological (and social) liberation through
  practices of signification (Paradis)

Marinetti (Futurism - 1919)
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Hypertext does it reduce cholesterol too?

• Summary of first-wave hypertext theory
• Hypertext dissolves the boundary between reader
  and writer (empowered readers)
• Hypertext redefines narrative
• Hypertext redefines text
• Hypertext democratises knowledge
• Hypertext is fluid and creative (like thought
  itself)
• Hypertext is an avant garde medium

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Criticisms of this theory

• Before we get into criticisms, a few points
• Try to understand why they got so excited about
  it
• Historically, similar claims were made for TV,
  radionow mobile
• We all like to believe we live in an important
  and radical era!

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Key Criticisms

• General criticisms
• Technological determinism
• Technology causes social change.
• eg hypertext democratises teaching and
  learning
• Technological Utopianism
• Technology causes social change, and this change
  is good!
• eg hypertext liberates us from confines of print

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Key Criticisms

• Claim hypertext liberates the reader
• Relies on idea that print readers are passive,
  and that mechanically activating links empowers
  them
• Print readers were never passive!
• Anyway, in hypertext the authors hand has been
  there before us, deciding which connections
  matter and which dont
• Fuller and Pope what is the difference between
  clicking a hyperlink and using a Coke machine?

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Key Criticisms

• Claim Hypertext is nonlinear
• Nonlinear comes from physics, where it means
  unpredictable, irreversible Chaos Theory
• Hypertext theorists want this radical meaning
• But hypertext is not chaotic or unpredictable.
  The author has laid down connections. Lines are
  still lines!
• Even constructive hypertexts are not a chaotic
  system
• Hypertext doesnt liberate us from regulated
  time/space
• Logocentrism.

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Key Criticisms

• Claim hypertext embodies the Derridean text
• Deconstruction can never be a positive science.
• On surface its good idea. But Derrida was
  talking about the nature of all language not just
  hypertext.

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Key Criticisms

• Claim hypertext is an avant garde medium

To be truly chaotic, truly radical in the sense
we have explored, a hypertext system would need
to demonstrate no authorial control. Hypertext
is not inherently a rhizome/ derridean/etc
whether it is avant-garde depends on how it is
used
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One final thing

• Utopian claims about hypertext rely on the
  structure of the system itself (nodes and links)
  and then ascribe an ideology to this structure
• As media students we know that ideology is a
  human thing, it is not inherent to any particular
  technology
• So it is possible to be radical with hypertext,
  to make people question how they make meaning in
  the world, but its not innately radical!

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Summary of criticisms

• Techno determinism/utopianism
• Claims that technology shapes society
• Hypertext doesnt liberate the reader
• never trapped in the first place!
• Hypertext is not nonlinear
• Lines are still lines, even if there are embedded
  in a hypertextual matrix!
• Deconstruction can never be embodied
• Nor can the Derridean text (it is the nature of
  all language)

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New Directions in Theory

• We might call this the second wave wiser,
  more sober reflections

Jay David Bolter
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Remediation

• Bolter Grusin
• Concepts
• Remediation
• Hypermediacy/immediacy
• Draw attention to medium itself vs transparency

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Remix Culture

• Lev Manovich
• Traditional communication relied on information
  going in one direction from source to receiver,
  now the reception point is a temporary station on
  the informations path. It arrives, gets remixed
  with other information, then travels on
  (Manovich)
• Modularity helps with remixing in digital media

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Conclusions

• Hypertext theorists over-excited in late 90s!
• Hypertext can be an avant-garde medium, but it
  depends on how it is used not inherently radical
• Remediation and remixing
• Hypertext is not a radical new invention, like
  all technologies it remediates prior media forms
• Everything is deeply intertwingled.

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Questions?