Landow’s writing on hypertext and what it means for the way we communicate provides a comprehensive conceptual detailing of the rather profound differences of this medium relative to print.

There are a lot of ideas in here.  Perhaps my biggest takeaway idea is that hypertext facilitates a network and what a network emphasizes is the communicative aspect of the artefact (i.e. the text).

The technology of hypertext and the internet seems to sum up everything that defines that nebulous term postmodernity – decentralized, non-hierarchical systems of organisation, etc, etc. –  that prioritize the dialogue and the discourse incited by a text (if that’s where you began) – rather than the sacredness and infallibility of the text alone.

Although, in the era of the digital technology and hypertext, hierarchies do of course still exist, masquerading as community – look at Facebook or Google, for example (I’m not singling you out here Google, it’s just you’re prone to exemplification and superlatives).  I’m reminded of a quote by English cultural theorist Raymond Williams talking about the tendency of the most powerful groups to shape the ways technologies are used (way back in 1974) – which he describes as:

‘[a] counter-revolution, in which…a few para-national corporations, with their attendant states and agencies, could further reach into our lives’.

Nevertheless, hypertext as a technology seems to inherently favor a kind of socially democratic form of community.  So a homegrown website might be bought out by a corporation once it becomes popular, for advertising revenue, but then another homegrown site will pop up.

Anyway, I’ve digressed somewhat. …

The immediacy of hypertext allows us to follow a thread of enquiry immediately and if we are to participate in a community, which the online environment encourages, then we have to communicate our information, our knowledge, our thoughts – rather than keeping it private (notes scribbled along the margins of a printed page) – and that I think can markedly stimulate the way and the speed at which we learn… (so long as we are literate enough about the network to be wary of possible pitfalls).

References:

Landow, George P. Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2006.

Freedman, D. (2002). A’Technological Idiot’? Raymond Williams and Communications Technology. Information, Communication & Society, 5(3), 425-442.