The Nature of Hypertext
From digitalhumanities
Hypertext's essential quality is its ability to link to other texts. When reading on a computer screen users automatically presuppose that there will be links to related works within its body. Reading a book involves a more patient stance, a user knows that a book cannot provide physical links to other works, mental links or associations found within a book are derived from the readers ability to comprehend and interpret the material and determine what is relative to his/her study. Authors of hypertext expedite that process, anticipating what is relevant and providing such to the user through links.
The format of hypertext therefore supplies chunks of information linked to other chunks of information in non-linear fashion.
Unlike the physical printed form of a book, hypertext exists in a fluid state. Users can cut, edit and paste works from hypertext without harming the original version. Wikipedia explains that exclusive authorship is compromised in hypertext, congenially of course, as different authors can edit and change information posted on their site. Hypertext can be expressed as a very democratic medium, enabling universal access.
According to Marie-Laure Ryan in Cyberspace, Virtuality and the Text, hypertext which resides in cyberspace exhibits the following characteristics:
- teleporting(traveling in jumps)
- infinitely expandable
- equidistant from all points
- cannot be mapped
Novices to hypertext understand this medium as an alternative way to find information. Reading text on a computer screen is still the same arrangement of letters that are presented in books. But the nature of hypertext and its demand for interaction eventually creates a different understanding of language for the writer or reader. To paraphrase Ryan, the reader becomes a participant in the textuality. The quality of the experience of cyber textuality is immersive, in contrast to Codex textuality which maintains a mind/body connection at all times. A mild argument can be made however, that imagination and good literature in book form can also enable readers to enter a state of transcendence from their own bodies. This is not a state that is exclusive to immersive hypertext but is much more common with its use.
