I found this week’s reading, ‘From Text To Hypertext’ by George Landow, very interesting for the most part, especially when it related directly to our blogs and the different styles of blogging.

The most relevant parts that I found in the reading was when Landow describes how hypertext, and specifically blogging, has completely transformed the ideas of a ‘reader’ an ‘author’, and a ‘text’, and these are ideas that we have to understand in order to actually participate in this blogging process.

Landow states that a blog is a “new kind of discursive prose in digital form that makes us rethink a genre”, and identifies the fact that this style isn’t a new one, it’s existed ever since there’s been diaries and journals. It’s the online, interactive format of blogs that make them so intriguing and important, they directly allow for an active and participatory relationship between the author and the reader, and encourage hypertextuality.

The author sees there being two different forms of this hypertextuality in blogs: linking chronologically distant individual entries to each other, which allows stories and articles to be put into historical and social context without the author repeating themselves, and through the comments on posts, which provides a space for people to respond and offer their own opinions.

We’ve already discussed the dangers of allowing comments on blog posts, and the issues of liability that Adrian has raised in the lectures, but I think if the comment’s are moderated for dangerous content, rather than differing opinion, they can be a useful and engaging aspect of any blog.

These blogs serve to blur the line between our online and offline lives due to its immediacy and accessibility: nowadays, we are going around a device in our pockets that can post to a blog, read a blog, and comment on a blog in seconds, it is now a constant part of our lives.

I found the statement that “we must write with an awareness that we are writing in the presence of other texts” particularly insightful – we can either choose to embrace this and provide links and references to supporting or contradictory texts, or we can ignore it and waste this opportunity.

These ideas are especially relevant to journalism and the reporting of news online. We can link directly to past stories, profiles on individuals and anything else, meaning that not so much backstory is necessary in a story, and we can get straight to the point. This is something that some, but certainly not all, news websites are embracing, and it creates a more engaging dissemination of news for the ‘reader’.

In the blog world (I refuse to call it the ‘blogosphere’), there is no longer such thing as a ‘reader’. Anyone that actively makes the choice to read, post, or comment on a blog post is an active participant in this world. They now have the choice of when to start reading a post, when to stop reading, whether to leave a comment or a useful link, and whether to share this blog with their own followers. They are now just as an important figure in blogging as the original author.

I loved the way Landow described the reader’s presence as being represented by the mouse cursor or that blinking line – it is a constantly intrusive presence in any hypertext, but this can be a positive thing.

I found this reading to be quite interesting, and definitely applicable to our own blogs, especially the ideas of including our readers in the blogging process, and creating a network through various links and references in our own blogs.