Other sections of the thesis

Other students have also put their theses on the web. Among them are:

Truth and Politics - Mass Media in Independent Ukraine 1991 - 2001

Private TV in Palestine

(a) What is a text?

In considering the position and nature of texts in the wired world, I will start with a definition. It is astonishing that reading so much of the work of semiotics and cultural studies the concept "text" is so widely used, yet so rarely explicitly defined. Two main forms of definition would appear to be useful: the material and the functional.

McKenzie (1986; 5) begins with a material definition. He says: "I define 'texts' to include verbal, visual, oral and numeric data, in the form of maps, prints, and music, of archives of recorded sound, of films, videos, and any computer-stored information, everything from epigraphy to the latest forms of discography." He stresses, however, the limits of such material definitions, because of the real nature of "texts". Looking back to the Latin origins of the word - textere, to weave - he says "the primary sense is one which defines a process of material construction. It creates an object, but it is not peculiar to any one substance or form."

The material definition is useful in its provision of a reminder that a text can take any form. This leaves us, however, with a problem of deciding again what IS a text. McKenzie (1985, 35) again offers us a very useful definition: "What constitutes a text is not the presence of linguistic elements but the act of construction. As Roland Barthes says of texts as the materials of myth, all that is required is that they 'presuppose a signifying consciousness'." He illustrates how the material nature of text can vary, noting the dangers of cultural limitations that may prevent us from seeing a text right under our nose. The example he gives is of the Arunta Aboriginal people of Australia, for whom every feature of the landscape has a textural function, telling the story and supporting "in detail the characterization, descriptive content, physical action, and the symbolic import of a narration" (1998, 31-32). This text has played an important role in the achievement of land rights, rejecting the Western inclination to consider the landscape as something merely "natural".

Fiske, approaching texts from a "traditional" cultural studies perspective, also sees the need for a signifying consciousness, to provide the signifiers in the text. He adds, however, the need for a recipient, one to apply signifieds to the signifiers (1987, 84). This, however, leaves us in something of the position of the riddle of the noise made in a forest by a falling tree when there is no being to hear it. It would suggest that once the signifiers have been used, whether or not signifieds are added is irrelevant in consideration of the definition of a text.

In an alternative approaching arriving at a similar conclusion, Searle (1984, 30) says that a computer message, a series of strings of zeros and ones, has no semantic content, while minds "are semantical, in the sense that they have more than a formal structure, they have a content". I would not go so far as John McCarthy, the inventor of the term "artificial intelligence" who argues that the simplest machines are semantical: "My thermostat has three beliefs -- it's too hot in here, it's too cold in here, and it's just right in here." (Quoted in Searle; 1984, 30). What he is in effect arguing for here, is what Guattari (1995; 36) calls the a-signifiying semiotics (? equations and plans which enunciate the machine and make it act in a diagrammatic capacity? )" When humans communicate with computers, however, whether the computer or the human originates the "conversation", there is a semantic content. So, I will argue, that a text is created whenever semantic content is transmitted and received, or where signifieds are applied to signifiers.

Signifiers and Signifieds

Although I quarrel with the views of what Hayles describes as the "poststructuralist turn" (2000, paragraph 6) in its rejection of the materiality of texts (and often also of bodies), some aspects of their studies are worth of recovery. In particular, it must not be forgotten that while signifiers carry guides to signifieds, and can put limits on the extremes of signifieds, they do not have a direct relationship. Audiences apply signifieds of their choice. Alternatively expressed, different "decoders" read the codes of a text differently.

The opposite view is that often adopted by cyber-critics, who see the wired world as providing Aldous Huxley's soma. Direct descendants of the hypodermic needle media theories, they believe that authors of lexias and lexia-groups will control the minds of their commissioners through their texts. Stein is typical: "When immersive games, interactive television and on-line entertainment come into their own, they will be incredibly powerful (And in the service of those who don't mind having people controlled.) Anyone with eight- or nine-year-old children at home who watches them play in front of a game screen for half the day can attest to the attractions ? If the name of the game is control, then these technologies are really good for it." (Stein; 1999, 205) This approach fails, however, to understand that the signifieds, the meanings, that those eight or nine-year-olds will put on those games - those texts-are not under the control of the "authors" (or the salespeople), but the children themselves. Some suggest that any computer text is inherently imbued with "the logocentric geometry of regulated time and space" (Bolter; 1991, 278). Yet again, this approach is ignoring the role of the decoder, the audience-member, the commissioner, in allocating a signified to the signifier.

The nature of digital text is such that it is composed of what has been called the "flickering signifier" (Hayles; 1999b, 47). Landow has described a similar concept in the "fluid text". He focuses on the ease with which it can be "refigured, reformatted, rewritten", while Hayles at a point at which I depart somewhat from her understandings, says that the transient nature evokes "the suspicion that all contexts, like all texts, are electronically mediated constructions" (1999b, 47). Since virtually all books now published in the Western world have at some time existed in the form of flickering signifiers, Hayles (1999b, 43) suggests that they must bear marks of that form. She points to If on a winter's night a traveller, a text that explicitly bears the imprint "as if the text remembers the moment when it was nothing but electronic polarities on a disk".

I would argue, however, that the flickering signifier is historically not new. Its chemical formulae may be different, but in the caves in which paintings of hunted animals were dimly lit by flaring torches, humans tens of thousands of years ago experienced the flickering signifier. A newspaper tomorrow is "fish 'n' chip paper", a protester's banner may be destroyed by police seconds after it is finished, but those texts existed in material form, just as does the lexia that sits on a computer screen, even if it is only there for a few seconds. The information is in a material base, as it must be to exist.

Paratexts and Their Commissioners

Many writers are stuck in the old, technology-specific idea of a text as a fixed, unvarying object, indeed feel that it provides a sense of stability whose removal can be seriously threatening. We are attached to what Florian Brady (1999, 146) describes as the "fetish character" of a bound book. Literary theories are full of "unrecognized assumptions specific to print" (Hayles; 2000). This acceptance of unrecognised assumptions is the mistake made by Nichols (2000, 96), who argues that "in cybernetic systems, the concept of 'text' itself undergoes substantial slippage. Although a textual element can still be isolated, computer-based systems are primarily interactive rather than one-way, open-ended rather than fixed. ? the mode is fundamentally interactive, or dialogic". It is not the concept that is slipping, but the technology that is changing from one form to another. How then, would he imagine the performance of a traditional epic poem in a crowded marketplace in a society with predominantly oral traditions?

Because the concept of text is so grounded in old technology, we need, as was discussed in Chapter One, new terms. Lexias, for individual bodies of texts, and lexia groups, provide us with a basic framework for delimiting elements of texts in the wired world, but what of a number of lexias commissioned, brought together by a user in a particular session? The answer is to be found in a concept developed by G?rard Genette, who refers to the paratext -- "the materials and discourses that surround the narrative object" (Lunenfeld; 1999, 14). He was writing in a barely wired world, and applied the term to books, saying the a paratext included not only the "text", but the cover design, the packaging, publicity materials, etc. Lunenfeld extends this concept for the digital age, saying that packaging can no longer be distinguished from the "text" when it is all streams of data in the same medium. Additionally, he says, the backstory, how for say a movie, it is promoted by the stars, by merchandising (which the movie itself also promotes), but competitions and soundtracks, may be more important - at least to the producers' economic interests, than the movie itself (1999, 15).

The only "centre" in a hypertext is the commissioner, which for these purposes might also be considered as a point of view, since it is situated for the period of commissioning within the text. The commissioner creates, enables, sets up the circumstances for the paratext to exist. In that way she is like a Renaissance art patron. She is, certainly, more active than that patron in the process of actually creating the work (although one can well imagine a Medici leaning over a great artist's shoulder and saying: "couldn't you have a bit more red in that corner", even if that was not the most common practice of the habitus). The analogy is not a perfect one, but it gives us a starting point to consider the modern commissioner.

We can begin by considering a commissioning session today, as one person sitting down at their computer to "surf" the Net. In our partially wired world, the possibilities full possibilities of the commissioning of paratexts is as yet far from developed. Technological constraints still limit the ways in which the commissioner can choose her path, or the framework in which it occurs, or the appearance of the lexias she encounters. As for the content of lexias, or the lexia-groups, beyond a small avant-garde, there have been few attempts to develop modes and styles suited to the new technological environment. This is not surprising. As Harper (1998; 47) wrote: "Radio news started with announcers reading newspaper articles over the airwaves. Television started by doing radio plays." In this period fractionally after the Big Bang, almost all Internet sites are "doing radio plays".

Nevertheless, if we consider what I can do on my computer tonight, we can begin to see how each commissioning session can create a unique paratext. The desktop of a computer is part of the paratext and even now commissioner can choose to alter it at any time (Mitchell; 1999, 126). I can choose to have a toolbar sitting on the page, with a variety of programs to which I could flick with one click of the mouse. I might encounter an unfamiliar word and flick to the dictionary, or if I were of an artistic bent I might have a draw programme sitting reading to record my impressions of the preceding lexias. Either would form part of the paratext I am commissioning. I can choose, quite simply, to have the text at a variety of sizes; I can choose to remove all advertising from my paratext (Blinn; undated); I can choose to have graphics switched on, or not; I can choose to contribute to a huge variety of chat groups, newsgroups and similar structures on which I will see my contribution appear instantaneously; I can choose instead to only read one entire newspaper, or I can use a search engine to see multiple perspectives on a particular news item; I could continue. All of those choices will shape the single paratext that I will commission in one "surfing" session.

The reality of the wired world, then, will be the existence of the possibility of an infinite number of paratexts (any commissioner could add any lexia on any subject in any way she chose). What will be created is a finite, but extremely large, number of actual paratexts, that will be generated in any interaction involving the wired world.

How then, can Kroker and Weinstein (2000, 122) say: "What appears as 'empowerment' is a trompe l'oeil, a seduction, an entrapment in a Baudrillardian loop in which the Net elicits information from the 'user' and gives it back in what the selectors say is an appropriate form for that user"? I have in one session, in the existing limited wired world, what is effectively an infinite number of possibilities arrayed before me to commission a paratext. If I do not like what I find on say a particular news topic, then as a commissioner of the paratext I have the opportunity to add my own lexia to it (and others' paratexts) through the many interactive forums available.

The chief technological limit at present is in the limited ability to record that paratext. The technology we now have developed almost accidentally, certainly not as a serious attempt to exploit the possibilities of hypertext (Mitchell; 1999, 116). The "back" button or the "history" section in programs such as Explorer or Netscape provide only a clumsy tool for recording one such commissioning, and the nature of the Net means that as links fall out or are changed, the text created is unrecoverable. What has been posited, and surely will be developed, was, curiously enough, first sketched out in 1945 by Vannevar Bush, who proposed - before electronic computers were invented - what he called the memex, which was based on the "tying together" of items of information (lexias) from a wide variety of sources (Bush; 1945). The mechanical suggestions he provides are quaint today, but what he was proposing was in effect the modern Internet (although in individual form). He saw it as producing "trails" through a long succession of data sources, trails that would, in my terms, be produced by the commissioner and would be thereafter available for the commissioner to retrace at her convenience. His commissioner could annotate those "trails" as desired and, as Johnson (1997, 122) points out, the "system grows smarter - or at least more associative - the more you use it". The ability for commissioners to create their own, pervasive, links, is one of the frontiers of the developing wired world that has yet to be effective breached.

Historical Paratexts

The power of every individual to generate paratexts can be situated historically in a general trend that has given individual "readers" greater power over their texts. This has been a result of social, economic and technological changes which have provided a transitional stage on the way to commissioning. One hundred years ago, a book was a precious item (writing paper and other supplies were also not readily available to everyone). Books have become relatively far cheaper and more available, and we have been able to appropriate them in new and increasingly efficient ways. When I first went to university, photocopying was readily available and relatively cheap, but it required the use of bags and bags of small coins. Now, a single card, which can be recharged with any cash denomination (or a credit card) is generally available. Consider too the technology of the highlighter pen, that grants a reader greater power to mark, in effect to alter by use of emphasis, the text, than earlier technologies. In researching this thesis, I have also been able to use "Stick-it" notes, another rather basic form of technology, but one that enables me to create my own systems of cross-referencing on "fixed" book texts (without creating permanent marks, so that it can also be used on library books). The trends towards commissioning began even before the hyperlink was developed.

Those who suggest that imbuing hypertext with some possibility in fundamental change in the relations between the commissioner and the text is "hard" technological determinism" can be referred to Murray, commenting on her (book) anthology about the lives of Victorian women: "Frustrated by the constraints of producing a single book with a single pattern of organisation, I filled my collection with multiple cross-references, encouraging the reader to jump from one topic to another. I simply wanted the reader to understand Mary Taylor's exhilaration in opening a dry goods store in New Zealand in the context of her friendship with Charlotte Bronte as well as in relation to the range of Victorian opinion on women's work." (Murray, 1997, 4) The need and desire for hypertext has always existing, it was just that the technology of the book was only able to fulfill it by the inferior mechanism of referencing and cross-referencing.

We have arrived at something like the much-vaunted post-structuralist "death of the author", but, as Landow (1999, 156) says, not through "the absence of someone writing, contributing, or changing a text that we encounter, but rather the absence of someone with full control or ownership of any particular text". Authors are not "dead", they will go on composing lexias, but it is commissioners who will put those lexias together into paratexts.

The Habitus of Paratexts

Lanham (1993, 4) is only one of many authors who find what he describes as "pixeled print" intrusive. At the risk of being ageist, it seems that here is a question of generation. So too with Gibson (1996, 49), who discusses possible changes in academic habitus with the coming of a wired world. He says that books are closely linked to academic's personal identity: "Such a lot can be invested in the tattered copy of Brown's Freud and the Post-Freudians, or the compact, comforting and densely annotated copy of Hart's Organic Chemistry ... could the shiny CD-ROM ever have the same emotional charge or homely feel? If it does this will be a signal that hypermedia will have become integrated into cultural transmission in a deep and significant way." Whilst the CD-Rom has largely had its day, I would suggest that a similar wired record, in whatever form it will be saved, will of course have a similar charge.

Lunenfeld suggests that the "habitus" of exploration is the "meander", but says that this is a "distracted" form of motion. This, I would suggest, is a culturally specific, modernist conclusion. The commissioner might not be driving towards some predetermined point like Roald Amundsen for the pole, but at the base of commissioning is interest, not distraction. The purposeful wandering of the d?rive is a potentially useful model (discussed in Chapter Five).

Habitus are already developing in terms of a "sense of the game" that allows individuals to act appropriately in on-line communities. Most quickly learn (or are told) what it is appropriate (or not) to particular communities, with penalties including flaming or banning very clear (Balsamo; 1995, 229). If communities become too much of a free-for-all, often a small group will move elsewhere, creating a community with stricter rules, while the original takes on a different form.

There are also very clear habitus evident in design. Even with a new computer program, or a new website, most experienced users will be able to find their way around quickly and easily. Basic operations such as saving files, moving files, clicking on hyperlinks, finding menus, have tended to evolve towards one habitus, rather than divurging in different communities, making it simple and easy to move across lexias, sites, programs and communities.

Deciding the boundaries, and shaping the relationship with the technologies that create the text, will be shaped by habitus. Friends of mine recently bought what is described as a "strawberry" Macintosh computer. They decided the "strawberry" label was "a bit prissy", so they declared it to be rasberry-coloured, and named it "Ruby the Mac". In choosing a Macintosh they were making certain social choices (as well as economic and technological ones), as was their decision to place the Macintosh in their living room, their most public space, while the household's PC was relegated to their bedroom. Their "sense of the game", the way their social inclinations are shaped, indicate that exhibiting a Macintosh is a good social choice, as is displaying a sense of irony in the selection of its name.

The Explosion of Text

I began this chapter with an exploration of the nature of text, because I want to consider the possibility that as the wired world develops, the number of texts will multiple enormously. The beginnings of this move are already clear. Once upon a time, when the house ran low on food, I drove to the supermarket and wandered around it picking up items. Now, I shop on the Internet, generating each month a detailed shopping list, complete with prices. On the store website is a list of my "favourites". I also buy clothes, furniture and books on the Net, in each case generating not only the purchase texts, but also a near-flood of communicatory emails. The massive potential volume, from pre-existing and developing habitus, is already clear.

It is possible, however, to imagine much further, to a exponential expansion of texts that involve much more of the human lived environment. In 1998, Kevin Warwick had a computer chip embedded in his arm. It communicated with the office in his building, activating a greeting message when he walked through the door, switching lights on and off appropriately, and other similar practical actions (Warwick, 1999). Implants might not be the future choice, but it is not hard to imagine perhaps a wrist-watch-like device that might perform similar functions. Voice-activated technology is also spreading, with complex systems planned for vehicles, telephone ordering and even ovens (Bailey; 2000, 51). All of these activities will generate huge numbers of texts.

Some might argue that talking to your door is an action, not a text. Certainly, if we imagine your embodied self now pushing the door open, that is an action, not a text. I would say, however, that once that door is part of the wired world, in your choice to open it signifiers are being generated and signifieds applied to them. Whether the application of signifieds is made by humans or non-humans is not relevant to the status of the text. The processes that will certainly be recorded (so that the machines can "learn from them", and if necessary their signifieds be adjusted), thus all of the requirements for "a text" will have been met.