The Plot of Hypertexts
It is quite possible that hypertext is the new literate medium of the future, arguably the present. Unlike its bound counterpart, hypertexts nonlinear. They do not follow a simply straight path from beginning to end, rather the audience is able to choose the information necessary to them and move on. According to Janet H. Murray, author of Hamlet on the Holodeck, “if we give the interactor complete freedom to improvise, we lose track of the plot,” (Murray, 196). This concept is something completely new to literature, for never before had we have such medium with the reader having most of the control.
Hypertexts are defined as, “a set of documents of any kind, (images, text, charts, tables, video clips, etc.,) connected to one another by links,” (Murray, 55). They have sparked interest in this new relationship between writer and audience. The plot is controlled/achieved by the reader, unlike in linear text where the writer controls the story’s destiny. The Victorian Web is such a hypertext. A project that began in 1987, The Victorian Web can be compared to a journal of interested readers contributing to the idea. It is a project of multiple writers, a feat nonlinear text can achieve with out a problem. With such possibilities, are hypertexts the new ideal medium?
Careful critiquing of a hypertext is necessary when beginning to understand the new medium. The Victorian Web has numerous links on the home page alone, each link leading to a different path of interest. From there, the topics provide are broken down into more specific topics, each with a link of their own. Articles are provided for these topics of interest, catering to the need of the present reader at the time.
Through my personal exploration of The Victorian Web, I was able to take separate paths on separate topics. The home page of the Victorian Web has 20 links on topics on the era, along with links for the function of the site itself.
Salisbury, Joyce and Andrew Kersten. "Law and Crime in Victorian England." Daily Life through History. ABC-CLIO, 2014. Web. 31 Jan. 2014.
The use of police to monitor intersections poses its own problems. First, there are not enough officers in urban areas to monitor every intersection on a regular basis. Second, if police officers have to remain at problematic intersections to observe traffic, they are not maintaining a patrol presence within their assigned areas. Third, officers are only capable of stopping one vehicle at a time after a violation occurs. These issues spurred the development of the traffic enforcement camera system; also called red light cameras (RLC).
Buzard, James, Linda K. Hughes. "The Victorian Nation and its Others" and "1870." A Companion to Victorian Literature and Culture. Ed. Herbert F. Tucker. Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 1999. 35-50, 438-455.
Landow, George P. "Dickens Wrote for Money!" The Victorian Web: An Overview. 2000. Web. 17 Oct. 2011. .
The. http://bss.sfsu.edu/behrooz/Page-Hist-Osmanli-decline.htm>. 4. What is the difference between a.. Allingham, Philip V. "England and China: The Opium Wars, 1839-60. " The Victorian Web: An Overview.
Web. The Web. The Web. 6 June 2015. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/--100617 Martin, Claire and Siegel, Masada.
This case study will focus on the psychological and physical effects of being bullied in the workplace both in person and through social media outlets. Until recently, I feel like workplace bullying has been seen as playful teasing. But people are now realizing that bullying is bullying and it is unacceptable regardless of one’s age or occupational position. This bullying ruins people’s lives and tears their confidence down. People are driven to quit their jobs or even go as far as committing suicide because of this harassment. Workers’ health is not the only thing affected by workplace bullying. Companies suffer because their employees are preoccupied with other worries and this causes them to be less productive. Unfortunately, there are no current policies specifically addressing workplace bullying, but I do believe that solid laws will be formed soon enough.
Robson, Catherine, and Carol T. Christ. "The Victorian Age." The Norton Anthology English Literature. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. 9th ed. Vol. E. New York: Norton &, 2012. 1130-137. Print.
Workplace bullying is defined as any as any type of repetitive abuse in which the victim of the bullying behaviour suffers verbal abuse, threats, humiliating or intimidating behaviours, or behaviours that interfere with his or her job performance and are meant to place at risk the health and safety of the victim (Murray, 2009). Bullying can take many forms, some blatant, others more subtle. Researchers ha...
Since the coinage of the term in an MIT Technology Review (2003) article, Henry Jenkins’ theory of transmedia has been significantly contested and edited by multiple media theorists and scholars. In short, transmedia storytelling is the technique of telling a narrative across multiple platforms. The goal of a transmedia project is to heighten the degree in which audiences participate and interact with the events, characters, and storyworld of a franchise. A transmedia project can include, but is not limited to, the use of movies, books, games, social-media, and graphic novels. These elements work together to make the story more enjoyable and contribute to richer fan-engagement. Jenkins’ best summarizes a definition himself in his 2006 book Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide; “A transmedia story unfolds across multiple media platforms with each new text making a distinctive and valuable contribution to the whole” (pp. 95-96).
Back in 2003 Henry Jenkins caused a massive stir in the media world when he introduced the idea of transmedia storytelling, Jenkins describes it as a process where elements of fiction are dispersed across multiple media platforms in order to serve the purpose of creating a coordinated entertainment experience. Jenkins goes on to say that preferably, each medium will contribute different aspects which will assist in the telling of a story and unveil new aspects. However a good transmedia text does not simply supply information, instead it allows the fans, or fandom, to interact with the world within the text (Jenkins, 2007). This essay will arue that transmedia storytelling impacts on how the audience interacts with the story, in order to
Looking back over the course of the semester, I feel that I learned many new and interesting uses for technology within the classroom – both for classrooms that have a lot of technology and for classrooms that are limited with technology. For the majority of the class, we utilized William Kists’ book The Socially Networked Classroom: Teaching in the New Media Age (2010), which provided multiple modes of instruction that both utilized and/or created technology. One of the first things that I remember, and consequently that stuck with me through the course’s entirety, is that individuals must treat everything as a text. Even a garden is a text. The statement made me change the way that I traditionally viewed Language Arts both as a student and as a teacher, as I very narrowly saw literature and works of the like as texts only; however, by considering nearly anything as a text, one can analyze, study, and even expand his/her knowledge. Kist (2010) states that society is “experiencing a vast transformation of the way we “read” and “write,” and a broadening of the way we conceptualize “literacy” (p. 2). In order to begin to experience and learn with the modern classroom and technologically advanced students, individuals must begin to see new things as literature and analyze those things in a similar manner.
Chapman, Raymond. The Victorian Debate: English Literature and Society, 1832-1901. New York: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, 1968.
"History in Focus." : The Victorian Era (Introduction). Institute of Historical Research., Apr. 2001. Web. 29 Mar. 2014.
Landow, George P. "Victorian Technology." The Victorian Web: An Overview. University Scholars Programme, 24 May 2011. Web. 22 Sept. 2011. .