Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print [Paperback]

Jay David Bolter (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0805829199 | ISBN-13: 978-0805829198 | Publication Date: January 3, 2001 | Edition: 2

This second edition of Jay David Bolter's classic text expands on the objectives of the original volume, illustrating the relationship of print to new media, and examining how hypertext and other forms of electronic writing refashion or "remediate" the forms and genres of print. Reflecting the dynamic changes in electronic technology since the first edition, this revision incorporates the Web and other current standards of electronic writing. As a text for students in composition, new technologies, information studies, and related areas, this volume provides a unique examination of the computer as a technology for reading and writing.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Comments on the first edition:
Bolter has provided a superbly clear, thorough, and theoretically sophisticated discussion of the computer as a medium for writing, as contextualized within the history of writing.
—Journal of Communication

Comments on the first edition:
This is a notable book, essential to a balanced understanding of the role played by the computer in the development of literature and thought in our time.
—American Scientist

Comments on the first edition:
What makes this a fascinating study is the way in which the author throughout compares and contrasts electronic writing and its tacit presuppositions with the values and strategies of earlier writing technologies.
—Religious Studies Review

The second edition of Writing Space will serve as a touchstone text for readers who haven't read the first edition and perhaps would be most useful in undergraduate or graduateclasses that focus on the historical context of hypertext studies.
—Technical Communication Quarterly

Praise for the first edition:
This book combines a deep understanding of technology and of the history of literature and culture, making it unique in depth, breadth, understanding--and therefore, unique in its importance to all of us, be we humanist, technologist, or just everyday reader.
—Donald Norman
University of California at San Diego; author, The Design of Everyday Things

Praise for the first edition:
It may well be that Writing Space does for electronic writing what Gutenberg did for print.
—Brian Eno
in Art Forum

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 2 edition (January 3, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805829199
• ISBN-13: 978-0805829198
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #449,683 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Future is Hypertextual, October 29, 2008

By 

T. Burrows (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print (Paperback)

I read with fascination Bolter's descriptions of the history of writing and the advent of computer writing and its implications for the future. There is no question that writers and critics will have to utilize, adapt to, and comment on computer technologies and their possibilities and limitations.

Bolter believes that hypertext and its fracturing, network affect on texts will seriously alter the way people write and perceive. He sees a world in which texts will circulate and be added to and get set up in such a way that the reader will have a free hand in their organization. I have to say that I am a little skeptical about this. It seems to me that the public will still want to read things that make clear, identifiable points, thus providing them with useful information, opinions, and coherent aesthetic experiences. Hypertext will be a part of the future, but its creators will not be able to go nuts and create huge, sprawling webs of information that will take a lot of effort to make sense out of. Clear, unaltered text will still be in demand. Writers, scientists, and critics will still want to retain a fair amount of control texts that they work so hard to create, and not simply throw them out there to be rearranged by anybody. For the hypertext aesthetic to really take hold, it will have to offer some practically useful methods of organizing text - like Wikipedia does, for example.

*Note - this should be 3 stars, not 4

14 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Modern Communication and Information Technology, March 28, 2001

By 

Ninon Crane (Georgia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print (Paperback)

It gives me great pleasure to submit the first critique for "Writing Space." Mr. Bolter is the only author I have discovered in my four years of study I actually enjoy reading. Mr. Bolter succinctly verbalizes the importance of understanding new media and finding a resolution to the gap we are realizing between the print mediums and new technologies. Mr. Bolter's writing provides the bridge for this gap. "Writing Space" forms a concise basis for anyone who is interested in the issue of reconciliation between the old and the new forms of media. This text is the begining in the understanding of the history of print and the advances of media to the modern age and computer use. I have read some very incomprehensible text on the subject but Mr. Bolter has created works that are a pleasure to read and easy to assimilate. He illuminates these subjects for everyone. Mr. Bolter provides a validation that the general public, the scholar and the instructor can begin to realize in unifying the concepts in communication and information technology studies. Mr. Bolter's works should be the reference of choice. This should be the first text you choose! This is a stand alone text or could be combined with his other texts as an entire semester of study.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Simplistic, November 27, 2011

By 

Oscar Sand - See all my reviews

This review is from: Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print (Paperback)

Perhaps because "remediation" is such a catchy, precious turn of phrase, academe has lionized this book. The concept evoked by this word is in itself solid, but Bolter uses a shoddy, shallow view of history to make his claims. He tells us (without showing much) that the book is inherently "linear" and non-participatory in nature, unlike the hypertext and digital media, which is "democratic," "participatory," liberating, complex, non-linear, blah, blah, blah. So many other people have already arrived at the same road-well-traveled that I won't even bother to rebut this.

His chapters on the medieval (and early modern) book are historically inaccurate and intellectually dishonest. Actually take a look at the set-up and rhetorical structures of a medieval codex, or even an early modern print work, and come back and tell us that the book is inherently clear and linear. His treatment of the book demonstrates no in-depth study of book history or book culture, and seems like (well, is) a straw-man with which to make his grandiose claims about the brave new digital world. Bolter seems to understand technology as something that "is as such" rather than something that has always been shaped by humans and human culture -- one could note, for instance, if one bothered to study it, the changing physical features of the book across time and place.

When he bothers to connect value and culture to technology, it is only to be the un-self-conscious cheerleader for the dominant cultural narratives of "freedom" and "innovation" (I almost expect to see "The American Dream" peppering the pages). The attachment of digital media to democratic values is utopian at best and cynical at worst: perhaps if the values of postmodern fragmented individualism and the free-market state that upholds them are what we define as "democracy," then Bolter's on the money, but I think many of us post-crash would disagree with him there.