Toward a Post-Critical Theory of Hypertext - CiteSeerX

John E. McEneaney Indiana University South Bend South Bend, Indiana USA [email protected] Voice: 219-237-4576 FAX: 219-237-4550

Toward a Post-Critical Theory of Hypertext

Running head: Toward a post-critical theory of hypertext

Toward a post-critical theory of hypertext - Page 2

Toward a Post-Critical Theory of Hypertext

This paper has two objectives.

One objective is to examine and critique

a critical theory perspective on hypertext and argue that it is flawed in at least two ways.

The second objective is to describe an alternative theory of

hypertext that addresses the weaknesses of the critical theory view and suggests a number of new concepts relevant to our understanding of hypertext and its application as a teaching and learning tool.

Hypertext and Critical Theory The critical theory view of hypertext has its roots in works that focus on the limitations of traditional print.

Critical theorists point out that

traditional print is linear, while human thought is not.

They emphasize the

structured, hierarchical character of traditional print and point out that this imposed structure may serve the needs of the writer but only constrains the reader in undesirable ways.

Related to the idea of an imposed structure

is the concept of a central axis of organization that establishes an a priori “center”, regardless of the needs and interests of the reader.

Critical

theorists argue that the centeredness and fixity of traditional print marginalize readers, who are obliged to simply accept the text as written or stand in silence before it since “there is no way directly to refute a text (Ong, 1982, p. 79)”. Critical theorists argue that these features of text are not necessary and, indeed, are unfortunate and “thoroughly unnatural (McArthur, 1986, p. 69)” artifacts of the technologies of traditional print (i.e. the book). Critical theorists advocate we “abandon conceptual systems founded upon ideas of center, margin, hierarchy, and linearity and replace them with ones of multilinearity, nodes, links, and textual networks (Landow, 1992, p. 2).”

Toward a post-critical theory of hypertext - Page 3 “What is unnatural in print will become natural in the electronic medium” because hypertext literally embodies poststructuralist conceptions of the open text (Bolter, 1990, p. 143).

“Critical theory promises to theorize hypertext,

and hypertext promises to embody and thereby test aspects of theory, particularly those concerning textuality, narrative, and the roles or functions of reader and writer (Landow, 1992, p. 3).”

The problem with the critical theory view I believe there are two problems with critical theory's view of hypertext.

One problem is that the characteristics typically identified as

specific to hypertext do not, in fact, adequately distinguish the new hypertext technologies from traditional print.

The second problem is that

critical theory overlooks what is the single most important feature of computer-mediated text - its capacity to support a dynamic and interactive textual intentionality that has never been possible before.

I will argue

that, despite the utility of concepts from critical theory in articulating features of hypertext, critical theorists are still fixed on a notion of text grounded in traditional print. If hypertext is really the technological revolution that will embody critical theory's notions of textuality, authorship, and meaning, it seems reasonable to require that critical theory provide criteria that can reliably distinguish hypertext from its predecessor.

It is not clear, however, that

criteria suggested by critical theory effectively differentiate the new open text from the print tradition.

To begin with, although rarely noted,

“distinguishing” characteristics offered by critical theory are invariably based on features that vary along a continuum, rather than on the presence of a clear distinctive feature.

In itself, this might not be a problem if

existing hypertext was routinely at one end of the spectrum and traditional print routinely resided at the other end of the spectrum.

Actual examples of

hypertext systems and traditional print, however, make clear that there is

Toward a post-critical theory of hypertext - Page 4 substantial overlap of traditional print and hypertext on the characteristics (see Table 1) usually taken to define “hypertextuality” by critical theory. A difficulty arises, for

Hypertext

Traditional Print

instance, in considering works published as traditional print that seem to require the label of hypertext - works by Sterne (1965), Joyce (1961, 1967), and Borges (1962).

Landow(1992 ,p. 102) refers

to these works as experiments in

textually isolated intertextual centered de-centered linear/sequential non-linear hierarchical anti-hierarchical uni-vocal multi-vocal writerly readerly unitary dispersed Table 1.

Terms frequently used by critical theorists to contrast hypertext and traditional print.

“quasi-hypertextuality” or as “hypertextual” (Delaney & Landow, 1991, p. 18), and suggests that what distinguishes these works from true hypertext is simply “the greater freedom and power of the hypertext reader” (Landow, 1991, p. 108).

Bolter, on the

other hand, is explicit in identifying works like this as forms of hypertext (Bolter, 1991, p. 135). These critical theorists must also be prepared to respond to the observation that existing hypertext systems, including on-line help systems, text-based diagnostic systems, and hypertext fiction typically involve either a central axis of organization, a hierarchical structure, or both, contrary to insistent claims on the part of critical theorists that hypertext is “intrinsically anti-hierarchical”, “decentered” (Landow, 1991, pp. 11, 128), and has “no canonical order” (Bolter, 1991, p. 25).

Here, as in the other

features presumed to distinguish traditional print from hypertext, there are clear examples where traditional print is more “hypertextual” than computermediated materials based on a point-and-click network of text. A particularly telling counter-example from the electronic side of the divide is William Gibson's Agrippa (A Book of the Dead) (cited in Jonas, 1993).

This short story is published as an electronic file on a floppy disk

but it cannot be printed out or viewed in the manner electronic files usually

Toward a post-critical theory of hypertext - Page 5 are.

Rather, upon insertion into a computer, the words of the story scroll

across the computer screen at a preset rate and as those words leave the screen they are erased from the file.

When the story has been read in this

way the disk has been wiped “clean”.

In this instance, the electronic medium

serves not only to enforce the linearity of the text, but even takes the linearity two steps further by making it both directional and temporal Agrippa is a one-way trip and there's no way back! Simply claiming that Agrippa is not hypertext doesn't solve the problem of its status, however, since the criteria used to exclude it have not been specified.

One could claim, for instance, that it is hypertext by virtue of

its electronic format and computer-mediated delivery which simply makes all its “links” automatically.

This position might be challenged by the claim

that “automatic” links don't give readers choices so that the resulting text is highly “centered” and “writerly” rather than “de-centered and “readerly.” But this challenge founders on both the observed centeredness of existing hypertext systems and the “hypertextuality” of traditional linear print.

A post-critical view of hypertext I have demonstrated what I believe to be a serious flaw in critical theory's attempt to define hypertext and distinguish it from traditional print.

In this section, my purpose is more constructive.

My intent is to

propose a more adequate theoretical foundation for hypertext that relies on the distinctions between text, metatext, and code.

I claim that these

distinctions provide a more adequate basis for distinguishing hypertext from traditional print.

They also help ground a number of ideas that follow as

corollaries, the concepts of intentional text and a mediating device, both of which, I will argue, are also essential features of the new hypertext literacy. The term Text refers to the “content” of a document as traditionally considered - the words that one might quote or cite. In an html document, the

Toward a post-critical theory of hypertext - Page 6 text consists of the unformatted words and characters that make up the file. Metatext refers to a variety of elements that are “about” the text proper. Examples of metatext include links, formatting, and presentation conventions. Metatext also includes reader aids such as tables of content and indexes. Text and metatext are represented in both traditional print and in hypertext (although in different ways) and, therefore, represent a common ground that the new technologies share with the old. Code, on the other hand, is a new idea that has no counterpart in traditional print since this term has been borrowed from computer science rather than linguistics, semiotics, or literary studies.

In computer science,

the term code is used to refer to the programming language statements that make up a computer program.

In the present context, code refers to the

program that is employed by a mediating device (i.e. a computer) to deliver a document to a reader.

Although the term code has no counterpart in

traditional print, it does have a counterpart in the act of reading traditional print.

In the context of a reader using traditional print, code

corresponds to the intentionality of the reader, who directs the reading process by choosing what to read, how to read, and when to read it.

Although

the use of code does not (and will never) exclude the intentionality of the reader, its presence endows hypertext with an intentionality of its own as a consequence of the code’s capacity to monitor, respond to, and control aspects of the reading process.

Two Examples of Intentional Text The concepts of text, metatext, and code are perhaps best explicated through examples.

One example comes

Figure 1. The On-Line Advisor with title bar and navigational buttons at the top, a dynamic link panel at the bottom and large passage viewer panel in the middle.

Toward a post-critical theory of hypertext - Page 7 from a study I recently conducted that examined the reading performance of students using two versions of a student advising handbook, one presented in print form and the other as a hypertext document.

The user interface for the

On-Line Advisor (Author, 1997) is illustrated in Figure 1.

Two features

distinguish the On-Line Advisor from the Netscape browser interface it is based on. One feature is that the On-Line Advisor looks somewhat different, with the usual menus, tool bars, and directory buttons eliminated.

A second, more

important, difference is that the On-Line Advisor “reads” the reader as well as the electronic files that store the information it presents.

It does this

using code that records both the reader’s movement through the handbook and the time spent on each page (the SetCookieChild() function in Table 2).

In

addition, there are two distinctly different kinds of text that appear in the on-line version of the handbook.

Static text consists of fixed text files

that are simply displayed by the browser. Dynamic text, on the other hand, is created on-the-fly by

6
JavaScript code that is running in the background (the SetLinksChild() function in Table 2).

In

the version of the handbook used in the study, the only dynamic text included appears as dynamic links in the panel at the bottom of the screen, although the potential to incorporate

// -->

MAIN TABLE OF CONTENTS

---

This Handbook describes Division of Education policies, procedures, and requirements for undergraduate programs in education at IUSB. If you are unfamiliar with Netscape please refer to the Help File. It will explain how to use this Handbook. . . (text and metatext omitted) .
Senior High/Junior High/Middle School
Special Education

Supplementary Pages
Help Page


Table 2. Text (bold Times New Roman), Metatext (italic Times New Roman and Code (Arial sans serif) in the On-Line Advisor page illustrated in Figure 1.

Toward a post-critical theory of hypertext - Page 8 dynamic text in other ways is present (as will be described in the second example that follows.) The importance of the distinction between static and dynamic text resides in the fact that dynamic text can be created in response to the user. It could depend on the user’s path thus far through the document, on whether certain pages were or were not visited, or on the response of the user to questions posed by the system (which could in turn be based on prior interaction.) Table 2 presents some concrete examples of text , metatext, and code in the html page from the On-Line advisor illustrated in Figure 1.

In this

table, text is presented as a bold face regular font (e.g. “This Handbook describes ...”).

A careful inspection of Figure 1 reveals that all of the

characters in this font actually appear in the page when it is displayed (with the exception of the title “6" which does not appear where it usually would because of the use of nested frames).

Metatext in this page is indicated with

an italic font (e.g. “”) and is associated with HTML opening and closing “tags” (e.g. “ and ). to format the content that is displayed.

The purpose of the metatext is

For example, the use of the HTML

tags “” and “” surrounding the text “Supplementary Pages” respectively turns on and off the bold face font.

Any text appearing within these tags

appears as a bold font in the page when it is displayed.

Code in this page is

represented by a sans serif font (Arial) and, in this case, is associated with the “function”, “onLoad”, and “onUnload” Javascript keywords.

The

SetLinksChild() function is responsible for creating dynamic links when the page is loaded.

The SetCookieChild() function is responsible for recording

the user’s path through the handbook and recording the duration of each page visit. The On-Line Advisor provides the usual text and metatext, but it also includes the critical third element: a program that supports real-time dynamic access to the text.

Moreover, the code that provides access also supports

Toward a post-critical theory of hypertext - Page 9 memory for user paths and reading time.

I would argue that a limited but real

intentionality resides in the capacity of a program to pursue a plan and, even more powerful, to redefine and adjust that plan in a dynamic fashion. Although it might be objected that the On-Line Advisor is a poor example of the new intentional text because it is a specialized system with features that may not seem to be a part of other browsers, the differences between the On-line Advisor and most other Web documents are purely cosmetic, with the code-driven intentionality of the Web as, perhaps, less apparent, rather than less real.

Another example will serve to make this point in a convincing

manner. As a second example of intentional text, consider the case of the documents we know of as Web search engines (e.g Yahoo, Alta Vista, InfoSeek, etc.)

The purpose of a Web search engine is to provide better access to

specific documents among the many millions available on the Web.

Typically, a

search engine will ask for search terms and then use the terms provided to seek out and display links to those documents that best match the search terms according to some criteria. You may already know (or not be too surprised to learn) however, that as the growth of business on the Web has increased commercial Web developers have become well versed in the methods used by search engines to identify and prioritize the links that are returned.

The reason for this interest becomes

abundantly clear when it is recognized that there are distinct financial advantages to commercial links that appear at the top of the first page of links returned as opposed to those links appearing at the bottom of the 63rd. In effect, what Web developers are beginning to learn is how to use other people’s code (i.e. the code in search engines) to their best advantage. In effect, the practice of “planting” data in Web pages with the sole purpose of increasing the “hit” rate for a search engine is a simple form of manipulation, like twisting someone else’s words to suit one’s own position. An important difference remains, however, in that what is being “twisted” is

Toward a post-critical theory of hypertext - Page 10 not “words” uttered at some point in the past but, responses emitted by a search engine at some time in the future.

I’d be willing to bet that more

than one zealous Web developer has created software for the explicit purpose of interacting with search engines in order to empirically test the “hit” rates of variously engineered Web documents so as to assure optimal exposure in the Web marketplace. But this example is still only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

The

next time you are surfing the Web, take a moment to drop by a search engine site and type in a general term like “travel”.

Within a few seconds you will

have a list of travel-related links to click on (like those illustrated in Figure 2), but that’s not all.

If you have used any of the major search

engines you’ll also find an advertisement near the top of your screen and it is very likely that the advertisement you see is related to one or more of the search terms you entered.

Try it - if your enter “travel” you’re very likely

to get a travel oriented ad (like the one illustrated in Figure 2). “sports” as your search term results in a different advertisement.

Entering In fact,

the ad that appears depends on what you typed in on the search term line. This is the kind of dynamic content that hypertext can provide.

Some of this

dynamic content is, of course, entirely expected - that was the whole point of the using the search engine.

But some

of the dynamic text may be less obvious and it could easily occur that a reader might not know if the text presented has been somehow altered specifically in response to information that has been gathered about the reader. Consider a variation on this theme - a print magazine to which you hypothetically subscribe that is especially printed for you so that your

Figure 2. Response from the Excite search engine upon entering the search term “travel”.

Toward a post-critical theory of hypertext - Page 11 colleague who subscribes to the same magazine has different ads and articles. If an enterprising publisher managed to create individually tailored magazines like this wouldn’t that be just like the search engine page?

And if so, does

this idea of dynamic text really offer any hope of adequately distinguishing hypertext from its print predecessor?

I would argue, however, that although

this variation certainly shares some characteristics with the search engine example, the individualized magazine is as static as any other print document once it leaves the printers’ hands.

The critical difference is that the

response you get from the search engine happens in real-time based on your online interactions, so what you read on the Web depends on what you read or how you responded only moments before. At this point, the role of the mediating device also becomes fairly obvious.

While it is the reader’s job to read the text and metatext, it is

the “job” of the mediating device to read the code.

In Agrippa, for example,

the mediating device delivered the content and then promptly destroyed it.

In

the search engine example above it is the mediating device (which, in this case, happens to be the remote server) that constructs a Web page while you wait based on the search terms entered.

For all the obviousness of the

mediating device, however, code tends to remain persistently elusive since it is not intended for “consumption” by human readers.

The Text as Author Although critical theory highlights the dynamic nature of the reading act, the dynamic possibilities of the hypertext delivery system are ignored in favor of the dynamic element provided by the reader.

It seems to me this

occurs because, a genuinely dynamic text challenges the

“empowerment” of the

reader in ways that critical theory finds unacceptable.

Gibson's disappearing

book is a case in point.

Agrippa insists on having its own way and pushes the

reader into a far more passive mode than any work in traditional print. traditional print, Agrippa includes “text” (its “content”) and metatext

Like

Toward a post-critical theory of hypertext - Page 12 (formatting, supporting documentation about the text, etc.) But Agrippa, and any other computer-mediated text also includes a third form of text - the program or code that runs “behind” the text proper, delivering and deleting “the” text, and this code establishes an intentionality independent of the reader.

It is this feature - the third form of text that I have referred to

as code - that I contend is what is unique to and defines hypertext as the “text as author.” Barthes (1974), in effect, discovers the flip-side of this coin when he suggests the idea of the author as text where “this 'I' [the author] which approaches the text is already itself a plurality of other texts, of codes, that are infinite (p. 10).” But if literary theory can entertain the idea of author as text, why not also consider text as author (i.e. as intentional)? Not only is text as author possible, it also provides a useful vantage point for addressing a number of practical problems having to do with disorientation and cognitive overload in hypertext environments (Conklin, 1987; Utting & Yankelovich, 1989; Zellweger, 1989).

The concept of a text as

author is possible because of work that has significantly extended the capacity of computers to represent and manipulate knowledge about both subject domains and learners.

A good example of this capacity is demonstrated in

recent work in intelligent tutoring systems, which deliver instruction in an adaptive fashion based on interactions with learners (e.g. Chambreuil, Charnbreuil, & Cherkaoui, 1994; Weber, 1996). This capacity also offers a means for diagnosing and solving problems that readers sometimes experience in hypertext environments through the use of code that models readers and can respond by providing user selectable “guided tours” and other organizational structures.

In the absence of such

structures, readers may enjoy a “freedom” burdened with disorientation and cognitive overload that can be so severe performance is degraded, rather than improved, by the use of hypertext materials (Gordon, Gustavel, Moore, & Hankey, 1988; Marchionini & Schneiderman, 1988; McKnight, Dillon, &

Toward a post-critical theory of hypertext - Page 13 Richardson, 1989).

Empowering readers is a good idea, but it is clear that,

not only are there diminishing returns, there comes a point where the freedom celebrated by critical theory becomes a liability.

Conclusions and implications I have attempted to demonstrate that the critical theory perspective on hypertext (as exemplified by Landow, Bolter, and others) has seized on a single aspect of hypertext environments (reader empowerment) and has failed to appreciate the way hypertext equally empowers the author and text.

Moreover,

I have argued that features cited by these theorists as distinguishing hypertext from the print tradition are inadequate to the task. In the place of the critical theory view, I have suggested that it may be useful to consider the constructs of Text, Metatext, and Code and their corollaries (mediating device and intentional text) as the essential dimensions of the new (and old) text, with the concept of code serving as the true criterial feature of hypertext, that feature which distinguishes it from the print tradition.

I have also tried to show that the notion of intentional

text, even if it seems radical, now pervades the Web, most conspicuously in the search engines which have become a regular tool of Web users worldwide. While critical theory has provided a useful starting point for conceptualizing hypertext, it fails to support a workable theory by overlooking what is most distinctive about hypertext - its capacity to support dynamic textual intentionality.

Hypertext is not simply about access, it is

also about the purposes for and the process of reading and these new dynamic capabilities may, in fact, be crucial if readers are to succeed in this new more complex literacy environment. Research suggests, for instance, that hypertext materials may be more cognitively demanding (Conklin, 1987; Egan, Remde, Gomez, Landauer, Eberhardt, & Lochbaum, 1989) or require a greater degree of higher-level relational processing (Wenger & Payne, 1996) than traditional print.

There are

Toward a post-critical theory of hypertext - Page 14 consistent findings that even highly skilled readers of print experience “navigational” problems as they move around within hypertext networks (e.g. Neilsen, 1989; Van Dam, 1988; Edwards & Hardman, 1989).

Recent postings

(Harste, 1997; Leu, 1997, Nederhauser, 1997) to on-line forums at Reading Online in response to hypertext articles by Reinking (1997) and Isidro Bruno (1997) echo these concerns. Moreover, studies exploring relationships between hypertext use and learner characteristics consistently identify less effective use of hypertext by individuals with characteristics traditionally associated with less able readers such as field dependence (Carrier, Davidson, Higson, & Williams, 1984; Lee, 1989; Weller, Repman, Rooze & Parker 1994), poor visualization and spatial ability (Vincente & Williges, 1988; Campognoni & Erlich, 1989), external locus of control (Gray, Barber, & Shasha, 1991), and use of less active learning strategies (Chen & Rada, 1996). Although the interactive nature of computer-mediated learning materials seems, on face value, to make a compelling logical argument in support of technology as “assistive” and “liberating”, the power that technology provides learners is almost invariably dependent on sophisticated user skills that are, by no means, assured among all learners.

While it may be that technology can

empower readers, the evidence thus far suggests it could just as easily prove an impediment to learning rather than an aid. If we fail to appreciate the potential of, and need for, dynamic control structures in hypertext environments, the ultimate outcome may be to put readers and learners at risk in these environments.

Fortunately, the same

power that overwhelms readers can also be harnessed to assist them - if we can determine how to do this.

For that, we must begin to develop the same kind of

empirical knowledge base for hypertext that we now have for print.

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Toward a post-critical theory of hypertext - Page 18

Table 1.

Terms frequently used by critical theorists to contrast hypertext

and traditional print.

Hypertext

Traditional Print

intertextual textually isolated de-centered centered non-linear linear/sequential anti-hierarchical hierarchical multi-vocal uni-vocal readerly writerly dispersed unitary

Toward a post-critical theory of hypertext - Page 19

Figure 1.

The On-line Advisor with title bar and navigational buttons at the

top, a dynamic link panel at the bottom and large passage viewer panel in the middle.

Toward a post-critical theory of hypertext - Page 20 Table 2. Text (bold font), Metatext (italic font), and Code (Arial sans serif font) in the html page illustrated in Figure 1.

6

MAIN TABLE OF CONTENTS

---

This Handbook describes Division of Education policies, procedures, and requirements for undergraduate programs in education at IUSB. If you are unfamiliar with Netscape please refer to the Help File. It will explain how to use this Handbook. . . (text and metatext omitted) .
Senior High/Junior High/Middle School
Special Education

Supplementary Pages
Help Page


Toward a post-critical theory of hypertext - Page 21

Figure 2.

Response from the Excite search engine upon entering the search

term “travel”.

December 17, 1997 Timothy Shanahan & Flora Rodriguez-Brown, Editors National Reading Conference Yearbook 1040 W. Harrison (M/C 147) University of Illinois at Chicago Chicago, IL 60607-7133

Dear Colleagues, You will find enclosed 4 copies of a manuscript I would like considered for publication in the National Reading Conference Yearbook. I have also enclosed two stamped, self-addressed envelopes. Any questions about this submission can be directed to me at the address on the left. I can also be reached by telephone (219-237-4576), fax (219-237-4550), and email ([email protected]). Thank you for your service to NRC.

John E. McEneaney, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Education