Hypertext’s Influence on Authorship :: Internet Authors Writing Essays Cause Effect

Hypertext’s Influence on Authorship The history of writing technologies has resulted in many changes in the way we view writing. One aspect of writing that that has seen a change as a result of writing technology is the notion of who can be a writer. Throughout history there seems to have been a trend writing technologies have followed. Each advancement in writing technology seems to have allowed authorship to a greater amount of people. First the invention of the book allowed for the first authors to record their ideas in a fixed medium. Then the invention of the printing press took the ability to make text from few well-trained bookmakers to anyone who owned a printing press. This led to a dramatic increase in the amount of books being created, resulting in a rapid proliferation of knowledge in the world. Many have theorized the next great revolution in writing technologies will be the Internet. Just like the printing press, the Internet is changing the notion of who can be an author. Today, anyone with Internet access can get his or her ideas on a web page. Posting ones thoughts, ideas, or writing online is in many ways similar to being published: Millions of people have access to posted writings to read, think about, and unlike a published book readers can even respond directly to the author. This new revolution raises a question. If anyone can make a web page and post their writing online for all to see, what happens to the notion of the author? It seems the authority that comes with being a published author is being threatened. Bolter explores this idea in the following passage of his book Writing Space â€Å"Those theorist specifically working on hypertext†¦have succeeded in portraying electronic writing as a medium that questions authority and fixity. For them, electronic writing reforms print by replacing the qualities of authority and fixity with t he flexibility and responsiveness that we have seen in literary hypertext†(165). If an author wished to get his or her writing and ideas out to a mass audience in the past the only way to do this was go through a publishing company. The publishing company would then pick and choose what it thought was worthy of being published.