The Art of Hypertexting - No, you don't need a mobile phone...

Semester Two at RMIT has been focused a lot on the ways in which we produce, distribute and consume media forms. In Auteurship and Narrative, we have been deconstructing films and looking at the ways in which they communicate certain ideas to us. In Broadcast Media, we have been creating TV segments for various lifestyle and current affairs shows whilst also producing radio documentaries for the hypothetical broadcast on ABC Radio National's 360 program. Finally, in Networked Media, we have been looking at the art of hypertext, the basic language of content for the web and the way in which we use this language in our everyday lives.

Hypertext is a very simple concept to understand but, as we humans like to do, many make it out to be more complicated than it actually is. The main reason for this is because hypertext documents give you CHOICES. Yes, you DON'T have to read that book from start to finish or watch a movie and have to wait for 2 hours before you can see the ending. Finally, hypertext allows you, the reader, to have an active role in the way you consume media.

The way hypertext achieves this enormous feat is in the way it links to other texts. That is basically the bottom line with hypertext. No longer is the reader held in a vice-like grip, only being able to steal away from the content for a quick tea break or a toilet trip. No, hypertext is pretty much the left-wing alternative of information access that allows you the freedom to explore data at your own will.

As mentioned, in order for this to happen, the data provided in the hypertext must be connected to other data. This occurs through the process of linking, which I explained the importance of in my previous blog a couple of weeks ago. This linking allows the reader to move back and forth from the main text inadvertently gaining more information than they would have had they been reading say a physical, text book which is fixed by an impermeable border. The linking involved with hypertext is extremely important as it not only imforms the reader in a way that books can't, but it also broadens the level of information available to the reader, something that could not happen with any normal book.

As mentioned earlier, hypertext is normally associated with complexity due to the ability of a hypertext document to provide options to a reader. Since the development of hypertext in the 1940s, many problems have begun to be associated with this process. Firstly, the ability of a writer to rightfully protect their content has become extremely difficult, with copyright becoming ever more prominent within the culture and society. This has been due to inexperienced and uneducated members of society creating their own hypertext content without following the linked data guidelines, which then leads into a copyright war. According to the Australian Copyright council, "The primary purpose of copyright is to provide an incentive for people to produce new works for the benefit of society as a whole". Eventually, without the application of proper borders and laws which hypertext attempts to dissamble, we will all end up recycling the same content over and over again.

The benefits of hypertext is that it allows the reader to also become the writer, creating their own experience of the text in the way they navigate through the data. Now, the reader has options as to how the intake certain data rather than ingesting it in a straight, linear fashion. Hypertext also encourages intertextuality which again encourages the increase in available data and the ability of the reader to access different perspectives related to the subject they are researching. Finally, hypertext allows a customized learning experienced within which the reader can cater their learning experience to their own needs, rather than attempting to conform to the rigid structure that a book or other fixed media form provides.

The expansion of hypertext across the online world has seen a great many developments into the way we access and produce content occur. Students are no longer confined to the dimly-lit interiors of their university libraries in order to find information about their latest chemistry assignments. Members of the Rotary Club can now access a variety of different perspectives on how to grow their rubarb due to the number of links available on their website to other rotary clubs. The expansion of knowledge is ever growing and whilst there are concerns over

the direction

in which it is growing, in essence, hypertext is the way of the future and should be embraced if the human race is to evolve again.

References: Gosse, H. Gunn, H. Swinkels, L. "Advantages and Disadvantages of Learning in a Hypertext Environment." Learning in a Hypertext Environment. 2002: Accessed: 04/10/2009. Available at: http://www.accesswave.ca/~hgunn/special/papers/hypertxt/advantag.html