Text isn’t a simple term that refers to written words or a message sent on a cellphone. It is something significantly more complicated as the definition has evolved over time. It has expanded to include digital literacies and it surrounds the simple idea of understanding. Understanding what a text is and what it can mean to people.
Eyman’s Perspective
Doug Eyman, in “Defining and Locating Digital Rhetoric”, uses the words of Richard Lanham to help set a foundation revolving around text and the incorporation of digital texts in the importance of it all. Lanham, alongside others, has a tendency to connect digital texts with literacy studies. This is something that other theorists have done with the help of hypertexts. Eyman uses these other theorists to explain text, define it, and depict the importance of understanding it.
The Complexity of Text
David Jardine, in “What is a Text?”, discusses its complexity and the diversity within it. An important point that he highlights is its perception and how it can be drastically different based on viewpoint. One text, multiple meanings. Online, physical—surrounded by texts of differing mediums. Understanding it is understanding that it’s not simple to grasp. It’s not just one thing with one example; it’s the exploration of meaning and importance.
Diverse Meaning
Honestly, I’ve always viewed text as something written or, in a literal sense, a text sent from a phone. I didn’t think of the wider picture and how it is anything that can be perceived and understood by people. In its informative nature, it can vary in what it actually is but I’ve come to understand that it includes a multitude of digital literacies. It isn’t as simple as a few words or a message sent, it is something that has some kind of meaning for a person or group of people. It can be written, it can be online, it can be a sign or a picture that evokes feeling or provides meaning.
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