The Changing Roles of the Reader and Writer in the Literature

The Changing Roles of the Reader and Writer in the Literature

The continuing emergence of innovative writing technologies allows people to express themselves and communicate in countless different ways from years past. With these new technologies comes a change in many of our learning and social traditions. The most important change is the metamorphosis taking place in the online literary world. The line between author and reader has become blurred as more and more technology-driven literature, like hypertext fiction, has become interactive. The whole idea of authorship has changed, which in turn affects the role of the reader.

In Writing Space, Jay Bolter further explores the changing roles of the author and reader in hypertextual literature. He believes the author and reader have become equal contributors to the writing process. The flexibility and interactive nature of electronic writing enables the reader to participate and choose what direction they want the writing to go (Bolter 168). Therefore, the writer and reader both participate in the writing process.

The new writer/reader partnership in the writing process brings many changes. One aspect that changes along with the new writer/reader roles is the idea of having control over what is interpreted from the work. In some ways, hypertextual literature offers more control to the writer. Bolter points out that the author, through the use of hyperlinks and hypertexts, can force the reader to visit and read a specific reference or reading, thus have greater control over cross-referencing (Bolter 175). However, he also states that the computer can make the act of reading a competition between the author and reader f...

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...writing and the transformations in our literary world create brand new roles for the reader and writer. Perhaps in the future the computer alone will be capable of taking on a role as an author as the idea of artificial intelligence becomes more and more developed. And even though the new roles may be hard to adapt to at first, as I found while reading “Disappearing Rain,” there is no denying that people are going to have to adjust to the new writing spaces available by changing the way they write and read.

Works Cited

Bolter, Jay. Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print. 2nd ed. London: Erlbaum Associates, 2001.

Carter, Deena. Disappearing Rain. 16 March 2004 http://www.deenalarsen.net/rain

Murray, Janet H. Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of the Narrative in Cyberspace. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2001.