Week 4: Hypertext/ Development of media from print to digital

Question 1

How do we organise knowledge?

Answer 1

• Douglas Hoffstadter
• The perception of relatedness is the key characteristic of intelligent behavior
• Metatext: “the pattern which connects” (Gregory Bateson)

Question 2

What is hypertext?

Answer 2

• Form of new media
• Only exists online
• Utilises machine memory
• BUT is reliant on the utilisation of human memory
• Associative in nature, non-linear (like thinking, unlike reading)

Question 3

When does a text become a node?

Answer 3

• When it is electronically linked to other materials

- Intertextuality: when texts interact with each other

Question 4

Hypertext possibilities

Answer 4

• Opportunities for participation - co-authorship
• Marshall McLuhan – Hot media vs cold media: active media vs passive media
• Authorship becomes more than writing, eg website design
• Hyperdocument: links and nodes (node: an object that is linked to another object, also referred to as a block)
• Places the onus on the reader, rather than the writer
• Opportunities for linking huge amounts of information (that otherwise might be constrained by physical space)

Question 5

Non-sequential writing vs sequential writing

Answer 5

• Ted Nelson
• Non-sequential (hypertext) is associative in nature, grows out of accretion
• More traditional forms of writing tend to be culled from a huge body of knowledge

Question 6

Reader vs browser

Answer 6

Reader – linear, limited but clear purpose

Browser – non-linear, unlimited but no purpose