Sourcebase: Hypertext 2.

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Bibliography:​ ​Landow, G. (1992). Hypertext: An Introduction. ​Hypertext 2.0​ (pp. 1-32). 
USA: The Johns Hopkins University Press. 
 
Main idea:​ An Introduction of Hypertext: How it creates a new way of perceiving texts and 
its limitations. 
 
Summary: 
 
Barthes defines hypertext as texts composed of words linked electronically in an 
multiple-open-ended textuality, where the distance between the reader and the writer is 
shorter; The reader is active as he can decide which connections to make, use different 
links, or alternate the routes. This idea of the reader as a producer of the text conceives a 
distinction between readerly texts (what can be read, but not written) and writerly texts 
(produced by hypertexts which enable the participation of the reader in the creation of the 
text) proposed by Barthes. 
 
In addition to that, Bush proposed the use of memex in hypertexts. It is a device in which 
an individual stories his books, records and communications. He related memex to the 
associative way of working of the human mind as memex adds speed and flexibility to the 
search of information as memex is an enlarged supplement to the memory. This idea was 
the bases for joining texts by links, the element hypertexts added to writing and reading. 
 
Hypertexts are strongly related to the concept of hypermedia and electronic texts, which 
lead in a new shift of paradigm; from ink to electronic code. Hypermedia includes visual 
information, sounds, animation and other forms of data. The use of computers provides the 
ease of manipulating, cutting and copying texts, images, sounds, etc. and through linking 
the creation of a new text. 
 
These changes will introduce, in an electronic and digital context, the loss of the primary 
role of books in scholarships. However, these transitions take a lot of time and they depend 
on certain economic, political and technological conditions taking into account that books 
as teaching and communicating machines are fundamental in our culture. 
 
Concepts: 
 
Tag:​ To mark computer information to be processed in a paarticular way. 
 
Node​: It is a unit of information which is connected to another by the use of links.  
 
Link​: It is the basic idea of which is a provision whereby any item may be caused at will to 
select immediately and automatically another; An associative indexing.