Evolving Mediums
The “New Media and Literacy” section of “Writing for the Web: Composing, Coding, and Constructing Web Sites,” starts with Richard Lanham’s idea that since traditional print texts have a very specific order of reading, but don’t have pictures, color, and and there is no change or revision, the reader is made to “feel that the writer’s textual meaning is not open to any interaction.” Whereas when we read text on a screen, it is “unfixed” and “interactive” since the reader can make changes in this medium and take on the role of writer.
I have mixed feelings about this idea. Drawing on Applen, I’d argue that as readers, we question and interact with printed text all the time if we’re actively reading. Which I think comes down to the difference between “interactive” and “interactivity” when discussing text and technology’s influence on it. We can manipulate interactive content, but cannot change it beyond our personal devices. Interactivity allows you to make changes to the actual content, such as blog posts and comment sections.
More than Clicks
Yes, when we read a book, there is a usual order in which it is read. You know what to expect when you open it. It’s not changing like blog posts on a website. You can’t open hyperlinks when reading a traditional text, but as Manovich argues, being ‘interactive’ is more than buttons and hyperlinks. He continues, “to be truly interactive, a technology would have to reflect the specific and idiosyncratic ideas and emotions of each person who engages with a computer-based technology.”
My ideas align more with Manovich. He argues that when we encounter a sentence, word, image, etc., in a book, our own ideas and experiences shape our thinking. Yet, when we move through a website, the hyperlinks that encourage us to click guide our thinking. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. However, I feel a book is more interactive than online text, where others’ opinions and ideas are so easily accessible. With books, our own thinking and personal ideas shape our interaction with the text. In contrast, the “interactivity” in blog posts may feel like our original ideas, but others who have access to the same platform often shape them.
Also, not to say that contribution to guiding your reading and thinking is bad in any way. I actually feel it is valuable to expand ideas and further one’s understanding. However, I do feel sometimes others can persuade us too much. I just think it’s also important not to lose that interaction between just yourself and a text.
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