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Hypertext and its impact on our world today

1. In "Hypertext, Hypermedia and Literary Studies: The State of the Art", Landow and Delany suggest that “hypertext can be expected to have important institutional as well as intellectual effects, for it is at the same time a form of electronic text, a radically new information technology, a mode of publication, and a resource for collaborative work… Hypertext historicizes many of our most commonplace assumptions, forcing them to descend from the ethereality of abstraction and appear as corollary to a particular technology and historical era. We can be sure that a new era of computerized textuality has begun; but what it will be like we are just beginning to imagine."This passage was written in 1991, at a time when hypertext systems were available in somewhat limited forms such as Hypercard and Intermedia, use of the Internet was largely confined to academic institutions, and the term “World Wide Web” had only just been coined. Now, 15 years later, comment and reflect upon the impact hypertext has had on the world.

Hypertext has introduced a whole new wave of possibilities and allows us to explore varying options. Extensively incorporated into our World Wide Web, the search engine illustrates how individual texts of body are linked together through words. The search for a subject churns out a whole string of possible links from which we can choose to explore. This eases the way in which we advance our knowledge as we are virtually connected and have access to the voluminous amount of information stored on the web. This includes movies, music, games etc

Hypertext allows us to explore the internet in a non-sequential manner, suited to the interest of the individual. In this sense, hypertext has helped us to personalize the way in which we use the internet, to read information, etc. In other words, it allows for greater variability. This notion or practice is in direct contrast to the concept and practice of standardization for mass consumption. It perhaps reflects a changing trend in our society today as well as represents the increasingly interconnectedness of our globalised world today.

It also changes the authorial ownership of a piece of work such that we can all be readers and writers of the content which we view on the internet. One such example is that of wikepedia where people collaborate and then elaborate as well as add on to the points to explain a subject.

Not only has it an impact on us as we surf through the World Wide Web, it has also had an impact on certain aspects of our culture too. One example of transcoding in this light takes the form of the way we conduct presentations in the form of a powerpoint. Some times we may present our points such that a word or slide is hyperlinked to another within the same work. At other points, a link may be included to bring the audience from the powerpoint slide to a webpage which provides further illustration or explanation of a certain point in text. However, this does not exclude pictures, videos, sounds and other visual or audio directories. While allowing for greater flexibility and fluidity, Hypertext also helps us to coordinate our points and to provide a certain structure to our thoughts.

posted by shamanthayan @ 8:25 PM