The Almighty Role of the Reader: The Journey to the "Center" of the Search
In class on Tuesday, Professor Graban brought up a really important point in regards to hypertext: it is not author-less. I know this seems totally obvious because there is obviously someone who wrote the words onto the website, but when we think of hypertext in terms of originality, and in terms of Landow, we don't necessarily realize that even though we interpret the hypertext in our own way and thus create our research based off of what we find, there was an original author who created what we are researching.
The reason this fact really stood out to me, was because as Landow stated, hypertext is a function of the reader, but I also think that hypertext is a function of the author, which we discussed in class. However, even though the author is the one who put the time and effort into creating the theory or information and placing it, designing it, articulating it, etc., I feel that the reader is the one who is clicking the links and searching other websites and defining terms, etc. and thus "originality" should be redefined in terms of the reader, not the author. The reader is the one who creates their own "original" search through hypertext, while the author is the originator of the originality of the hypertext search because they are the ones who put the information there. Which creates a paradox, because if the author is the one who created the content and put the information there, but us as the readers are the ones who are searching through it and clicking and finding what we want to find, how could either of them be the originator of whatever is being searched? So, I guess what I am getting towards, is that an individual searches original author (the reader of the material), in my opinion, has to be the reader, because they interpreted it and found it and thus created the specific search, even though an original author is responsible for the material being available. This is because, the author of the content isn't there to navigate through what is there, they just have provided all the tools and means to help the reader out. They are responsible for the search, but the reader is where the originality of the search lies.
This makes me think of the Public Secrets website. The author created Public Secrets and the format of the website, and the links, so she is responsible for the content on the website and how the search and navigation could go, but the visitor to the website decides to what to pay attention to and click on and what to google on the side about what they saw, etc. The author was responsible for the material and the beginning of the search because it was their website, but the reader is responsible for what the search was about and they decided to visit the website in the first place. Without the decision on behalf of the reader, the website and material would have never been found or navigated through and the author of the material would have never even been recognized. Therefore, the search and its originality lies with the reader.
Hypertext theory is one that is based on the reader and is only effective because of the reader, not necessarily created by them. Landow states that hypertext is a system in “whose provisional point of focus depends upon the reader, who becomes a truly active reader in yet another sense” (Landow 36). An active reader is the main contributor to hypertext theory being effective because they are the ones who will click links and continue the search on. The author disappears from the content after placing it, other than just being linked to the content via name. I guess this shows the narrative distance of the situation, because the author of the information disappears from the situation altogether; the reader isn't with the author (most likely) and isn't be directed through the websites or told what to click on, but rather they are on their own, figuring out information and formulating ideas from the content they have available to them or that they have found. I think that this narrative distance makes hypertext theory successful, because it enables the reader to have freedom and a more open-mind in their search because there is nothing there guiding them, they are just there researching on their own.
Lastly, in terms of hypertext and decentering, a search does have a starting point, but through hypertext, we lose that point (the center of the search) and thus have a different one or different ones through our search. (Landow, 36-38). The goal of a search is to try and solve the "center" of our search, but the point of a search is to come to some sort of center. Hypertext is there to assist you on your journey to the center of the text, because it enables you to find and make connections.
Lastly, in terms of hypertext and decentering, a search does have a starting point, but through hypertext, we lose that point (the center of the search) and thus have a different one or different ones through our search. (Landow, 36-38). The goal of a search is to try and solve the "center" of our search, but the point of a search is to come to some sort of center. Hypertext is there to assist you on your journey to the center of the text, because it enables you to find and make connections.
Hey Alex,
ReplyDeleteA lot of what you’re saying reminds me of Richards, the semantic triangle, and how our personal experiences influence our interpretation of texts and circumstances. When it comes to hypertext, you’re right, every reader is going to have a different search experience, because we will be inclined to click different links and pay attention to different details based on our personal tastes, experience, and knowledge. In this way, the reader very much creates his or her own original search through hypertext, and if we stopped there, it would seem that the author had very little to do with it once the hypertext was published.
However, the author has the opportunity to anticipate at least some (although, it’s true, probably not all, as there are an infinite number) of our clicks and searches. In the same way an author can write a choose-your-own-ending book, in which the reader chooses which pages to read, but the author has prepared a story for whatever the reader chooses. This is why I would push back a bit on your claim that the originality of the search lies with the reader of hypertext. In a choose-your-own-ending storybook, the originality of the story (or its ending) does not lie with the reader, even though the reader chose which page to turn to. The writer still wrote the pages.
Although it’s true, as I said before, that hypertext complicates that claim because there are potentially an infinite number of avenues to search, and nobody can anticipate infinitely. So maybe the originality of the search when it comes to a hypertext is a team effort—maybe it belongs to both the author and the reader? You also pointed out that if we visit a website (your example was the Public Secrets one), we are then free to take to Google and do some more searching for ourselves. I would argue that in that case, the originality of the search does depend largely on what links the reader clicks on, but then there’s also the fact that those links wouldn’t be there for us to click without authors. I don’t think the reader’s decision to visit the website in the first place means that the originality of the text lies with them. After all, our decision to read a book doesn’t influence the originality of what was written in the book, and it certainly doesn’t place that originality in our hands. Still, I would agree with you that the reader bears the largest role in creating the original search when it comes to hypertext. So, I suppose my final argument would be that originality in these cases is a team effort, and the reader is the captain of the team!
-Jessica Gonzalez