THE WEB ESSAY: EXPLORING ARGUMENTS

SHOWTIME

In his article "The Reader's Narrative in Hypertext," Gunnar Liestrol proposes a solution to what he calls the "paradox" of "hypermedia communication":

Hypermedia is a pronounced receiver medium. However, multilinearity and the reader's increased influence on meaning production also have a negative side: the efficiency of communication decreases. The phenomenom of hypermedia communication therefore seems problematic: the moment one stresses the defining qualities of hypermedia, its potential as a means of conventional information exchange disappears. Hypermedia messages may transport large quantities of varied information but not necessarily at a satisfactory level of precision. How may this paradox be solved? . . .

The abolition of hypermedia communication as a paradox appears in the focus on hypermedia as a means of indirect communication, a medium dominated by showing. A mode of mediation in which the purpose is not to present a linear structure but to take advantage of dynamic network structure to exchange "perspicuous presentations" generating "that understanding which consists in 'seeing connections'"[quoting Wittgenstein] - "the pattern which connects" [quoting Gregory Bateson]. (111,115)

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