Writing Space: the Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing

by J. David Bolter

This book is a study of the computer as a new technology for reading and writing -- a technology that may replace the printing press as our principal medium of symbolic communication. One of the main subjects of Writing Space is hypertext, a technique that allows scientists, scholars, and creative writers to construct texts that interact with the needs and desires of the reader. Bolter explores both the theory and practice of hypertext, demonstrating that the computer as hypertext represents a new stage in the long history of writing, one that has far-reaching implications in the fields of human and artificial intelligence, cognitive science, philosophy, semiotics, and literary theory.

Through a masterful integration of introductory, historical, illustrative, and theoretical material as well as an accompanying diskette containing a sample of hypertextual writing, Bolter supports his claim that the computer will carry literacy into a new age -- the age of electronic text that will emerge from the "age of print that is now passing." His reflections on literacy in contemporary culture lead him to a compelling ironically, cultural literacy is becoming almost synonymous with computer literacy.

272 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1990

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've reviewed several (mostly sci fi) books that I read and loved in college, which don't do much for me now. This is the first time I've reviewed one that I *hated* in college, but find rather more interesting going back to look at it today. I remember this book being the height of boredom for me when I was twenty - I struggled to read a few words and retain some sense of interest in them, then when I figured out what they meant, I found myself thinking, "yeah, so what?" I’ve kept it on my shelf all these years, occasionally wondering whether I should just throw it away finally.

But, being me, I didn’t, and I’m reasonably glad of that now. Bolter really was ahead of his time to be writing about the implications of hypertext for the future of writing in 1991 (two years before the Internet “went commercial” and actually started to be seen by people who weren’t computer specialists). And what he says may be more important to us today than it seemed to a young non-computer-oriented student at the time. Not that he’s right about everything, but what he did see was that reading and the concept of literacy was going to change once text moved out of books and into the freer environment of cyber-space. Interestingly, he ties certain post-modernist experiments to this tendency, including the works of Barthes and Derrida, suggesting that at least some literary scholars were already champing at the bit before computers presented a new medium to change the placement of text.

It’s been too long since I gave this book a thorough read for me to give it a complete review, but I think those interested in “information literacy” or in writing in the blogosphere or other Internet contexts will find it interesting, at least for a historical perspective on how we got to the weird and hybrid place we are now, and where we may be going as the book-bound past fades increasingly from memory.