Alex's Research Report
From English 194 Wiki
Understanding Literature Through Hypertext
By Alex Barkett
May 21, 2007
Contents |
Abstract:
David S. Miall and Teresa Dobson in “Reading Hypertext and the Experience of Literature” analyze the difficulties of trying to learn from reading hypertexts as opposed to ordinary print texts. They use theories of reading, cognition and their own empirical studies to show that hypertexts do not necessarily provide a liberating and powerful experience for readers in accordance with the way their minds function. Instead, Miall and Dobson assert: “hypertext discourages the absorbed and reflective mode that characterizes literary reading.” As a result, they call for further research into the educational possibilities that hypertext presents.
Description:
Reading and Hypertext: Miall and Dobson introduce their article by dispelling theories that say hypertexts will eliminate print texts by empowering and liberating readers. They then shift their focus to the more modest task of studying how people learn from reading, investigating how both print texts and hypertexts fare against cognitive theories when tested against an audience. There is, however, a complicating factor. Several theorists have proposed that the decentered and possibly extensive branching narrative form of a hypertext demands somehow to be controlled by the reader regardless of its content; thus reading comprehension must now encompass both form and content. To show they have learned from a hypertext, readers must understand “how” they have read in addition to “what” they have read. The last issue Miall and Dobson discuss is what happens to the reading process when text no longer moves in a straight line but instead becomes more like a network or map that must be navigated visually. How is learning from navigating fragmented maps different than learning from traditional texts? This is the essential question that governs the report.
Thinking in Images: Miall and Dobson turn toward Richard Lanham’s theories on reading icons to further their study of reading hypertext. Lanham argues that the omnipresence of visual icons in television and advertisements have desensitized us through overexposure. This desensitization causes us to treat the icons as subliminal background effects, which now have the effect of tacitly influencing our viewing, reading and listening experiences. Are the visual iconic elements in hypertext also treated by readers as subliminal or are they at the forefront of our conscious attention? We invest personally in what we read by illustrating the events in our minds. Hypertexts may put this personal investment in reading at stake. “Just as the experience of seeing a film made from a novel that we have previously read is nearly always slightly disappointing, because the director's images (however excellent in themselves) fail to coincide with our own as readers, so the computer imagery that Lanham envisages will displace the imagery we normally create during reading.” The effect of multimedia on the reader disallows the kind of creative interpretation that occurs while reading ordinary text and leaves the reader understanding less. “Multimedia, especially through the use of another's imagery, is liable to impose a set of limited, standardized meanings on a literary text.” Miall and Dobson are not in complete agreement with Lanham, but they agree that one does not understand a literary text on the computer as well as one would in print.
Thinking in Links: Some have suggested that the mind works via links as, for example, when we jump between encyclopedias, websites and texts while researching for a project. Hypertexts organize information in a similar manner. It would then be logical to conclude that links in hypertexts provide a more intuitive way of learning. Miall and Dobson disagree with this theory. They cite research that suggests the reader has trouble navigating a network of links, cannot decide on an appropriate path, and often gives up early. They conclude, “[h]ypertext cannot offer to model the reader's mind. The author's associations are not those of the reader.”
Reading hypertext fiction: An empirical study: In their first experiment, Miall and Dobson, transformed a short story, Elizabeth Bowen’s “The Demon Lover,” into a hypertext consisting of twenty-four nodes. Thirty-five participants read this version and thirty-five read the original version. “In all, 75 per cent of the hypertext readers reported varying degrees of difficulty following the narrative. Only 10 per cent of the linear readers made similar complaints.” They also noticed that hypertext readers took longer to finish. Their findings were then more-or-less reproduced in a second study of a different story. Miall and Dobson conclude: “hypertext, as a vehicle for literary reading, seems to distance the text from the reader.” Though Miall and Dobson do not suggest their studies are comprehensive in any way, they do argue that hypertexts do not yet provide an informative way of interpreting literary texts because they are not constructed in accordance with what is known about learning.
Postscript: Literary Politics: Saying that hypertexts liberate readers is also saying that print texts are in some way restrictive or imprisoning. Miall and Dobson strictly reject this notion and claim that it has “forestall[ed] serious attention to the relationship of hypertext and reading.”
Evaluation:
In this research paper, Miall and Dobson have in mind exactly the kind of work The Gold-Bug team in English 194 is engaging in. Our general goal is to provide a hypertextual exploration of Poe’s short story for an audience. Given this goal, we must be concerned with what our readers are going to learn from our project that they could not learn from the original story. Miall and Dobson’s skepticism regarding the way the computer presents a traditional text as negatively altered does not bode well for our desired effect. On the other hand, our work will be an example of exactly the kind of research that Miall and Dobson say is necessary for further understanding the educational possibilities for hypertexts. In many ways, the goal of the experiments conducted by Miall and Dobson is significantly different than that of our work. We are interpreting a text, not trying to reproduce it. Thus, we need not be wholly concerned with the reader getting everything they would from the print text. Still, we want to remain true to the emotional and psychological effects of Poe’s story. This implores us to copy or mimic some elements of the original text, even though the words will be our own. This paper verified some concerns we already had. We all experience a shorter attention span and increased desire for visual stimulation when working on the computer. This is something that while we may try to combat ourselves, must also be accepted as a consequence of generating work for the computer. As a result, we want to keep our work engaging, by employing a multi-sensory approach, keeping the story exciting and fast-paced, and encouraging but not demanding that the reader engage with the text, for example, via solving simple cryptograms. We feel that these strategies should limit the negative conclusions of Miall and Dobson’s research while also maintaining the integrity of Poe’s work in our own interpretive exploration of the text.
Resources for Further Study:
Miall, David, S., and Dobson, Teresa, “Reading Hypertext and the Experience of Literature,” Journal of Digital Information, Volume 2 Issue 1, Article No. 46, 2001-08-13. (http://jodi.tamu.edu/Articles/v02/i01/Miall/)
Miall and Dobson include an extensive list of references, four of the most notable are:
Dobson, T. and Miall, D. S. (1998) "Orienting the Reader? A Study of Literary Hypertexts." Spiel, 17, 249-261
Jackson, S. (1995). Patchwork Girl [computer program] (Watertown, MA: Eastgate Systems) – An example of the kind of hypertext Miall and Dobson have in mind.
Lanham, R. (1989) "The Electronic Word: Literary Study and the Digital Revolution." New Literary History, 20, 265-290.
Moulthrop, S. (1993) "You Say You Want a Revolution? Hypertext & the Laws of Media." In Essays in Postmodern Culture, edited by E. Amiran and J. Unsworth (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 69-97.
Swiss, Thomas. Reviewing the Reviewers of Literary Hypertexts. Dec. 30, 1998. http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/electropoetics/corrective - Discusses many of the same frustrations both with reading hypertexts and with the popular critical receptions of them.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/POE/contents.html - this link is to a collection of Poe’s works on the computer. There are many websites that offer these stories, but one might consider the alterations that are made from the simple transference of print text to the digital medium, regardless of links or textual alterations.
