What the Geeks Know:

Hypertext and the Problem of Literacy

Stuart MoulthorpUniversity of Baltimore

Presented by Olivia Porter

How does literature, particularly serious literary work, compete with the internet, popular entertainment, and other increased demands on leisure time?

Overview

Catching waves

Misreading reading

What the geeks know

Literacy in Babylon

Hypertext- a definition

According to Theodor Nelson, a hypertext is generally a computerized document that allows users to easily access it, search it, and navigate it, usually through a series of links between documents; and rather than the reader sifting through the text, travelling toward the desired pages, the hypertext document brings those words to the reader.

Hypertexts give readers more control to shape their reading experience than ever before.

The most extensive example of hypertext today is the World Wide Web.

Hypertext and Literacy

Traditional understanding of literacy is inadequate for new and complex digital discourse

Moulthrop (2005) argues that we should define hypertext on the basis for a new version of general literacy

Normal text vs. hypertext

Example: Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext

Dalgaard and Liestol identify three waves in the history of hypertext

1st wave: pioneers such as Nelson, Engelbart, and Van Dam originated the concept and built the first experimental systems.

2nd wave: the introduction of personal computers and popularization of the internet, produced widely distributed systems and the first examination of their uses and implications.

3rd wave: Arrival of the World Wide Web and refinement of existing technologies.

Hypertext as reality, not novelty.

› “a communication environment in which virtually all texts are exposed to automated search, retrieval and hypertext reference” (Dalgaard, 2001)

› Archive refers to any application of hypertext.

Hypertext and print culture

› Moulthrop sees the need to re-examine earlier approaches

› The ‘archive’ and digital media in general have yet to establish legitimacy

Misreading reading The WWW continues its global expansion

Rise of the blogosphere: LiveJournal, Wordpress

2003- US National Endowment for the Arts released a report titled ‘Reading at Risk’ focusing on the declining interest in leisure reading of literature. › In another half century, there will be no paying customers for

fiction and poetry, aside from compulsory assignments in schoolrooms

› Americans will be less inclined to think critically, vote, or take part in civic life.

› The report is confined solely to books, fiction, poetry and drama. Electronic archives, audiobooks, weblogs, USENET groups, WIKIs, or MUSs and MOOs were not included in the study.

› The findings of this report are indicative of a larger problem.

Misreading reading

Electronic media is seen as a threat to conventional print publishing.

Demonstrates the ignorance towards digital technologies, as well as the problem to see the electronic archive as a possibility for literacy to evolve continuously

What the geeks know

Encounters between old and new media are inherently adversarial (adverse) and never assured of balanced resolution

innovation in communication seems to be inescapably problematic.

The epistemology (theory of knowledge) of electronic text is radically different from conventional writing.

Semantic web

Moultrop questions:› “How should education respond to the

challenges of an increasingly mediated world?”

› “How can it enable young people to become active, and critical participants?”

The concept of ‘universal without totality’ offers a promising way to unify theory and practice in thinking about the archive.

Universality- discourses or methods available to all.

Totality- claims to the absolute truth. Postmodernism discarded both

Literacy in Babylon

‘The Lottery in Babylon’ published in 1941. A fictional civilisation in ancient Babylon

which reorganises its epistemology around a municipal numbers game. Anything that happens in the city, good or ill, artificial or natural, is thought to be determined by repeated throws of the dice, iterated on some vast and unknown scale.

Perhaps God does not play at dice with the universe, but then again, perhaps God is the dice

Literacy in Babylon

Literacy can no longer be ceded to print culture alone

A new definition of literacy founded on pathwork in the hypertextual archive

He concedes that such a change in agenda will not automatically fix the widespread misunderstanding of media

But he is confident that those ideas will tend to exceed initial expectations

PROPUBLICA: THE DEADLY CHOICES AT MEMORIAL http://www.propublica.org/special/interactive-inside-memorial-medical-center

ABC: BLACK SATURDAY http://www.abc.net.au/innovation/black

saturday/ VISUAL LITERACY- THE BLACK SHEEP

AGENCY http://theblacksheepagency.com/explor

e/

Other digital literacy programs

Programs are now developed around increasing participation and engagement in their target groups

and incorporating skills development in new emerging digital technologies. (ACMA, July 2000)

Digital media and learning

Henry Jenkins- The White Paper’- ‘Confronting the Challenges of Participatory culture: Media Education for the 21st Century’

Project New Media Literacies

http://www.newmedialiteracies.org/the-literacies.php

Discussion questions

Today’s readers analyse multiple representations from a variety of

disciplines, including texts, photographs, artwork, and data. How do we write for a medium when we can’t predict what the reader might

click?

Discussion questions

How can hypertextual documents prevent reader disorientation?

Advanced computer technology for storing and retrieving information - and the electronic ‘hypertext’ of words and

images- is changing both the experience of reading and, according to some scholars, the very nature of what is read. Do think your reading

habits have changed? How so?

The machine is u/sing us

http://youtu.be/NLIGopyXT_g

References

Australian Communication Media Authority (ACMA) 2010, The ACMA digital media literacy research program. Viewed 16 May 2011, http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc-PC_311472

Buckingham, D. 2003. Media Education: literacy, learning and contemporary culture. Cambridge: Polite Press.

Levy, P. 2001, Cyberculture, Minneapolis U. Minnesota Press. Jenkins, NML White Paper 2009, viewed 16 May 2011. http://newmedialiteracies.org Livingstone, S. 2003, The Changing Nature and Uses of Media Literacy. Working

paper. London, London School of Economics. Viewed May 16 2011, http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/media@lse/mediaWorkingPapers/ewpNumber4.htm

Nielsen, J. (1995) Multimedia and Hypertext: The Internet and Beyond. Steinmetz and Nahrstedt, Chapter 1: Introduction, History of Multimedia Systems,

viewed May 17 2011, www.cs.sfu.au/CC/365/mark/material/notes/Chap1/Chapt1.html Hypertext, Wikipedia, viewed May 16 2011, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext PROPUBLICA: THE DEADLY CHOICES AT MEMORIAL,

http://www.propublica.org/special/interactive-inside-memorial-medical-center ABC: BLACK SATURDAY, http://www.abc.net.au/innovation/blacksaturday/ VISUAL LITERACY- THE BLACK SHEEP AGENCY,

http://theblacksheepagency.com/explore/ YouTube, ‘The Machine is us/ing us, viewed May 17 2011, http://youtu.be/NLIGopyXT_g