Description
Book SynopsisIn this study, Christian Vandendorpe examines how digital media and the Internet have changed the process of reading and writing, significantly altering our approaches toward research and reading, our assumptions about audience and response, and our theories of memory, legibility, and context. Reflecting on the full history of the written word, Vandendorpe provides a clear overview of how materiality makes a difference in the creation and interpretation of texts.
Surveying the conventions of reading and writing that have appeared and disappeared in the Internet''s wake, Vandendorpe considers various forms of organization, textual design, the use (and distrust) of illustrations, and styles of reference and annotation. He also examines the novel components of digital texts, including hyperlinks and emoticons, and looks at emergent, collaborative genres such as blogs and wikis, which blur the distinction between author and reader. Looking to the future, reading and writing will contin
Trade Review
A Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2011.
"In forty pithy essays, the author considers technological innovations that have transformed writing, altering the activity of reading and the processing of texts, individually and collectively. . . . The book's fragmentary organization--the adroit syntheses can be read in any order--makes it exceptionally accessible ... for the born-digital generation. . . . Essential."--Choice
"Precious nuggets of information in every chapter."--Communication Research Trends
"A valuable study of how reading quietly transforms culture."-
-Libraries & The Cultural RecordTable of ContentsSeries Preface --
Ray Siemens and Susan Schreibman vii
1. Introduction
1
2. In the Beginning Was the Ear
5
3. Writing and the Fixation of Thought
8
4. The Power of the Written Sign
10
5. Writing and Orality
12
6. Standards of Readability
15
7. Linearity and Tabularity
22
8. Toward the Tabular Text
28
9. Meaning and Effect
40
10. Filters in Reading
49
11. Textuality: Form and Substance
52
12. Textual Connections
56
13. Instances of Utterance
59
14. From Interactivity to the Pseudo-Text
63
15. Varieties of Hypertext
70
16. Context and Hypertext
77
17. The Limitations of Lists
80
18. Aporias of Hyperfiction
82
19. Reading Images
87
20. The Writer and Images
94
21. The Rise of the Visual
97
22. The Period, the Pause, and the Emoticon
102
23. Op. cit.
105
24. The Reader: User or Consumer of Signs/
108
25. Intensive and Extensive Reading, or the Rights of the Reader
112
26. Metaphors for Reading
116
27. Representations of the Book
119
28. The Role of the Publisher
121
29. The CD-ROM and Nostalgia for teh Papyrus Scroll
123
30. Giving the Reader Control
125
31. Text and Interactivity
129
32. Managing Hyperlinks
131
33. I Click, Therefore I Read
133
34. The End of the Page?
136
35. On the Fragment
143
36. The Body of the Text
146
37. The Decline of the Novel
149
38. The Rise of the Blog
152
39. A Culture of Participation and Sharing
155
40. Toward the Universal Digital Library
159
Notes
167
References
177
Index
187
