A Review of Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print (2nd Edition) by Jay David Bolter
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001
ISBN: 0-8058-2918-0/0-8058-2919-9. 232 pp., $34.50 Review by W. Webster Newbold
Ball State University
Ten years ago Jay David Bolter published Writing
Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the History of Writing (hereafter
WS1), and it shortly became one of the major scholarly works exploring and defining
the new phenomenon of hypertext as a far-reaching development in the history
of writing. Bolter’s work in computer science and his roots in classical
studies, along with broad historical knowledge, gave him a unique perspective
from which he argued for the importance of digital writing as a personal,
aesthetic, economic, academic, and cultural activity.
In 1991 it was perhaps still necessary to defend the idea of electronic
writing as significant in and of itself, and capable of serious artistic
and academic functions. That is no longer the case. Today’s culture is
far more “wired” and open to computer-based and networked modes of expression
and communication. It may be all the more important, then, to try
to understand why and how electronic writing is important in our lives
and especially in teaching and learning. Bolter’s revision of his
1991 book attempts to accomplish this – to update our conceptualizing of
the new writing space in light of our more extensive experience with digital
literacy technologies and with major structural developments in our electronic
world. Paramount among these, of course, is the birth and rapid growth
of the World Wide Web, which in 1989-91 was barely a glimmer in the eye
of its creator Tim
Berners-Lee.
Bolter writes, "Like many others, I had no idea that the Web would grow
into a defining application for electronic communication [. . . ]. As a global
hypertext system, the Web has provided the most convincing evidence of
the computer's potential to refashion the practice of writing [. . .]. It
seemed worthwhile to revise Writing Space to take the Web into account,
simply because much of what I had written was made obsolete by this phenomenon"
(xi).
Several other areas also comprise Bolter's revision focus. Along with
the growth of the Web is paired Bolter’s concern for the “breakout of the
visual” in contemporary media. In Writing Space second edition
(hereafter WS2) Bolter traces the “growing
importance of graphics, animation, video, and audio" (xi) on the Web and
the ways these non-alphabetic functions create tension with and in many
ways oppose traditional textual literacies, among which Bolter includes
hypertext in its classic form. This strand continues work
Bolter has done in the intervening years since WS1 appeared.
A perspective on many of the changes brought about by digital technology
and seen on the Web has been developed in the concept of “remediation,”
which was introduced in the 1999 book by that name published by Bolter
and Richard Grusin. Remediation
had limited itself to visual media – photography, television, film – rather
than enter the issue of print. In WS2 Bolter fills this gap, giving extensive
consideration to the remediation of print culture in electronic formats,
notably the Web.
Finally, Bolter attempts to answer earlier critics who accused him of
treating technology in a deterministic way in WS1, seeing “the computer”
as an autonomous agent that acted on people and culture while neglecting
the relationship of writing as a practice to its material tools. In a section on “Writing technologies and material culture,” he explains
and defends the approach he and others have taken to understanding the
relationship between technological tools and the context they function
in.
This review essay will not attempt to discuss the whole work in outline,
which in many points repeats material well known from the first edition
(It does provide a tabular comparison
of the contents headings, however.) Rather, I will emphasize these new
areas outlined above, cross linking between the discussions when appropriate
and commenting on issues especially relevant to those of us who teach and
learn in hypertext environments. Focus topics of this review include:
You might also wish to review my Works Cited.
Note: The Companion Website to WS2, announced on p. 214, may not be available at this time.
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