From Gutenberg's Galaxy to Cyberspace: A New Model for a New Writing Space.

This paper synopsizes the central findings of a 2-year empirical study into how the new rhetorical situations presented by hypertext affect the writing process and thus impact upon literacy and education. It theorizes a conceptual model based on these findings. New technologies are transforming literacy in general and writing in particular. Hypertext is perhaps the most radical transformation to date. In hypertext, writers struggle to master a new process that includes electronic links, visual images, sound, animation, and other forms of data within a single digitized writing space. This transformation challenges educators to reframe their roles and points of reference as they increasingly use hypertext in the form of websites to enhance curriculum. Hypertext offers new opportunities for optimizing learning. New process models help to rethink conceptions of writing in order to adapt this new form of writing to best pedagogical practices. This research was guided by the overarching question: How are writers' perceptions of the new rhetorical situations presented by hypertext affecting their attitudes towards writing and the consequent decisions they make in response to these perceptions? (Author/AEF) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. From Gutenberg's Galaxy to Cyberspace: A New Model for a New Writing Space PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES Jean S. Mason, PhD. University of Toronto at Mississauga 3359 Mississauga Road North KC207 Mississauga, Ontario L5L 106 ismason(i4sympatico.ca U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) it This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent ___ official OERI position or policy. Abstract: This paper syndisizes the central findings of a two-year empirical study into how the new rhetorical situations presented by hypertext affect the writing process and thus impact upon literacy and education. It theorizes a conceptual model based on these findings. New technologies are transforming literacy in general and writing in particular. Hypertext is perhaps the most radical transformation to date. In hypertext, writers struggle to master a new process that includes electronic links, visual images, sound, animation, and other forms of data within a single digitized writing space. This transformation challenges educators to reframe our roles and points of reference as we increasingly use hypertext in the form of websites to enhance curriculum. Hypertext offers new opportunities for optimizing learning if we use it well. We need new process models to help us rethink our conceptions of writing in order to adapt this new form of writing to best pedagogical practices. This paper presents such a model. This paper synopsizes the key findings of a completed two-year conceptual and empirical study of the hyperwriting process. My research was guided by the overarching question: How are writers' perceptions of the new rhetorical situations presented by hypertext affecting their attitudes towards writing and the consequent decisions they make in response to these perceptions? The study was the basis of my recently completed doctorate. My position within the study was that of an "indwelling researcher" who inhabits the world s/he is studying. That is, my dissertation was composed and submitted as a hypertextual website. It was the first dissertation of its kind at my universityboth content and formand one of the first in the world. It challenged academic norms in both content and form and successfully redefined academic notions of literacy to some degree. The findings of this study are contextualized within a significant body of pre-hypertextual writing theory and a small but growing body of hypertext theory. Unlike writing theory, hypertext theory consists principally of speculative theorizing. Little attention has been paid to the particulars of the writing or reading processes, and empirical studies are virtually non-existent. This study begins to address that imbalance.. The design of my study is based on phenomenological concepts and methods common to qualitative research using an emergent, field-based, ethnographic approach. This framework is well-adapted to the complex nature of the writing processa process that is rooted in individual human cognition contextualized within a social experience. Because our "social universe" is constructed, it does not exhibit the same kind of cause and effect consistency as the physical universe. A qualitative methodology allows for the unpredictability and variability inherent in this socioCognitive process (Denzin, Donmoyer, North, Villanueva). The emergent interdisciplinary paradigm of the ethnographic approach (Clifford and Marcus, Geertz) further supports the goal of discovery and deeper understanding, important in a discipline such as hypertext theory that is itself interdisciplinary and emergent. Purposive sampling allows for a range of experience with maximum variation, and data collection in natural settings respects the importance of context in an intrinsically social activity. Inductive analysis helps to ensure that what is seen as important is determined not only by the researcher, but by the informants and the data they generate (Eisner, Glesne and Peshkin, Maykut and Morehouse, Strauss and Corbin). Data collection methods include interviews, observations, correspondence, journals, and artifacts. A significant amount of data was collected over the Internet using asynchronous and synchronous communication (Markham, Mason, "Ethnography in Cyberspace"). The informants in this study include writers whose orientations range from academic, to business, to creative. At the time of data collection, they all composed regularly in a hypertextual writing space and published on the World Wide Web. Although it is possible to compose in hypertext that is not destined for the Webthus integrating only internal hyperlinksI did not encounter writers who used hypertext this way. To my informants, hypertext and the 2 1333ST COPY AVAIIILA1312 Web were virtually synonymous. I collected data from seven "major" writers who used hyperwriting in their professions, and approximately ninety "minor" writers in the group setting of three classroom-based writing courses. Further, having authored extensively in hypertext myselfand having assumed the posture of the "indwelling inquirer" I also drew on my own experiences. In my dissertation, I reported my complete findings in the manner of an "emic" or "thick" description extended to include interpretations, speculations, and pedagogical applications (Mason, From Gutenberg's Galaxy). In theorizing a conceptual model based on my findings, I believe I have achieved the ultimate goal of qualitative research to develop "the highest level of interpretation and abstraction from the data in order to arrive at the organizing concepts and tenets of a [grounded] theory to explain the phenomenon of interest" (Maykut and Morehouse 122). As stated above, the principal conceptual framework for my interpretations is a significant body of pre-hypertextual writing theory, and a small but growing body of hypertext theory. I will elaborate on this framework by giving a brief overview of writing and hypertext theories as follows: The 1960's witnessed a major shift away from a behaviorist understanding that viewed writing principally in terms of models and rules derived from finished texts. This shift is embodied in what we now call writing theory or composition theory. Writing theory is grounded in a philosophy of rhetoric that rejects a traditional product-oriented understanding of writing in favor of a process-oriented approach. Early writing theory draws heavily on the philosophies of Kenneth Burke who regards language first and foremost as symbolic action and only second as representation. The work of Richard Rorty, Thomas Kuhn, and Clifford Geertz further shaped writing theorists' growing understanding of the role of social and cultural contexts in the writing process. Moreover, the influences of Michael Polanyi, John Dewey, Suzanne Langer, Lev Vygotsky and Jerome Bruner inspired the notion of writing as both a tacit and a transactional process with both cognitive and social implications. Early explorations of the writing process focused on an individual writer's cognitive process. Tensions soon broke out between theorists who focused on individual cognition and those who viewed writing as a socially contextualized process. Bizzell and Faigley synopsize this complicated intellectual exchange in theoretical models that help us to understand the evolution of writing theory. Exchanges among process theorists set in place a framework for "reinventing" the rhetorical tradition (Freedman and Pringle) in such a way as to emphasize ultimately both the cognitive and social dimensions of writing in order to reveal the full complexity of writing as "a manifestation of complex and interpenetrating cognitive, social, and cultural processes" (Kennedy 243). It is upon this dynamic that the sub-division of writing theory known as genre theory is built. Genre theory is the most fully elaborated theory of writing to date because it joins the micro level of writing to the macro level of discourse, unites process with product, and connects the individual (cognitivist) and the social (constructivist) approaches. It is the link between writing theory and hypertext theory. Genre theory bridges the theoretical gap between traditional writing and hypertext because, like the broader conceptual framework of discourse theory, genre theory recognizes writing as a fo