Authors in Flux

 

For my Writing for Electronic Communities class, I read George Landow’s Hypertext 3.0 and fell in love with chapter 4, which focuses on Reconfiguring the Author. As Landow discusses, in the past with writing technologies such as printed books, the roles of the writer and reader had distinct definitions and clearer boundaries. With a book we know who does what: the author produces and owns the text and intellectual content whereas the reader is merely a participant who examines and reflects on the content. In this case, the reader has no direct involvement or influence on the writing decisions the author makes – they can not, in essence, alter the content themselves and contribute to the discussion.

Now, technological advances in writing spaces, such as online Weblogs and Intermedia, offer the ability to blur the lines between author and reader; as Landow states, “the functions of the reader and writer become more deeply entwined with each other than ever before.” The first question I asked myself was, if the goal of future writing is to transform the set roles of the reader/writer, stepping further away from separating the two to transform them into a merging of roles, who in fact, claims ownership of any written work completed? Landow states that although hypertext breaks down barriers between the reader and the writer, it also “infringes on the power of the writer, removing some of it and giving it to the reader.” If we progress in this area, is the distinction between who is the writer/reader even necessary? Are we heading towards a socialized writing community where all intellectual property converges into a joint bank of knowledge, or should we stick to capitalist ideals and ego, where to stake a claim into intellectual property is paramount to maintaining a sense of individualism, profit and self-worth?

 I have discussed my reactions to hypertext novels previously on this blog, which, as a reader, I felt was tremendously liberating. 253 is a hypertext novel that offers the reader an opportunity to become a partial author, and from reading the responses of the readers who did decide to cross over into the middle ground between writer and reader, the experience and connection of being able to participate brings writing/reading into a whole other level of interaction. Online novels such as 253 are, in a sense, creating a social writing community that nurtures and explores the boundaries of what it is to be an author, both from the writer’s and reader’s perspective. Weblogs also offer the reader access to participate by a method of leaving comments on a writers blogs, but unlike interactive hypertext novels, the exchange is limited, as the reader cannot alter the original document. This offers some stability to the writer, while leaving an avenue and sense of interactiveness open for those who wish to participate.

To me the question of the psychology behind the definition of who the author is persists. If we were to look at this argument through a sociologist’s viewpoint, they would probably comment on the status of Western Civilization’s need to strive for autonomy and individualism – we all want to be recognized for our capabilities as individuals, not as a collective. Would this not be lost in a virtual sea of authorship where lines between the writer and reader become increasingly blurred? How then, would creating online writing spaces which encourage community contribution and a shared acknowledgement of authorship, really be effective in a society that screams me, me, me!? Would this converging of authorship blossom more under sociological environments where the collective effort and not the individual is the norm, or does it all just come down to the individual writer’s ability to open up and have the confidence to share their thoughts without the need to defensively stake a claim? Hypertext is not a thing of the future, it is a thing of the present; the steps are in motion for readers to start to contribute and slide into the role of the writer - what remains to be seen is if there are enough writers able to to step back and give up some of their possessiveness towards their work and become team players instead of solo flyers.