#interiorization

IN THEORY:

“The digital” has been a recurring theme in my investigation of authorship throughout this course, because technology really does shape how we consider both texts and authors. Burke writes about hypertexts, texts that do not form a single sequence and can be read in various orders - online, the reader can choose to discontinue reading documents to consult other related material - this form results in a paradigm shift. This concept can be tied to our earlier discussions of collaboration, particularly the discussion of internet memes and the democratization of new media - these new online forms of reading and authoring texts form this paradigm shift.

Interiorization vs. Exteriorization is a major debate - whether digital technology (such as hypertext) is internalized into our consciousness to shape how we think, or are they exteriorizations of the way our minds already work?

IN PRACTICE:

I argue for exteriorization - that hypertext reflects how we already think. It is successful because it reflects tendencies and capabilities that humans already possess- furthermore, these have been developed by people, thus they were imagined before they were implemented. Humans had to have the pre-existing ability for our minds to process informations in this way, otherwise, I would argue, hypertexts would be unintelligible.