Since computer writing and reading is "primarily visual," Bolter reviews the history and means of using images within the text. In this chapter he is interested in showing how hypertext contains and refigures "originary" elements of writing. Electronic texts combine picture-writing and text in a dynamic space, the icons (which he compares to pictures) providing an organizing structure for the words. The computer screen does not operate within a closed system of signs, he argues, but is able to receive new icons (unlike the alphabet, but like picture writing). Electronic text is not only inclusive, it is constructive, as the earliest texts were. The computer also "promises to redraw the boundary between margin and memory" because of its dynamic nature, which allows the reader to choose, even construct, a path through the text. Bolter notes the oral quality of the relationship between the reader and the text because of the reader's ability to influence the outcome. He concludes by explaining that within hypertext many different systems of representation can co-exist. (Kristin Bolton.)
Return to Electronic Text: Selective Annotated Bibliography.
Return to home page. 
Michael Hancher

Department of English, University of Minnesota

URL: http://umn.edu/home/mh/ebibkb4.html

Comments to: mh@umn.edu

Created 5 May 1995

Last revised 17 September 1996