Introduction
I was born at a time where media changed greatly and rapidly all at once. Right before I was born, V.H.S. tapes were still common, video games were in cartridges instead of discs, and the internet was still developing. After I was born, and more specifically when I had grown up a little more, media really began to differentiate from how it had been in years past. A specific example of this that is also presented by Applen is how the internet allows for interactive changeable text that was not possible beforehand.
a changing world
Apple brings up a thought put forth by Richard Lanham about how our interpretation of digital media is more similar to our interpretation of oral media than it is to written media. This is because digital media and oral media can change on the fly (making them interactive), whereas written media is more permanent. Take Wikipedia for example, where the articles are always changing to be more accurate. In comparison, a printed encyclopedia would always have any wrong information in it. One could reprint it with the correct information, but the wrong version would still exist. Digital media has made true corrections a possibility in a way that we have never seen before.
Furthermore, digital texts are capable of things that print simply can not do. For example, if someone writing an article wanted to include an accompanying video then they could just link to it. In the age of print this would not have been possible or practical.
Conclusion
Upon thinking about this concept deeply for the sake of writing this, I came to the conclusion that although media has changed significantly we as writers have yet to. Teachers and others in the academic sphere still hold students to the standards of the age of print. Proper citation formatting and rules against digital concepts like hyperlinking have made many people digitally illiterate to an extent. These people could have become masters of digital literacy, but they have instead had their time wasted learning things that do not help them. We as a society need to grow and change so that we can seize the advantages that digital media affords us.
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