Hypermedia, internet communication, and the challenge of redefining literacy in the electronic age

Abstract

This paper argues that the dominant hypermedia models of electronic literacy are too limited to do justice to new media and changing views of literacy in the electronic age, especially in terms of their recourse to postmodern theories of representation. Such models tend to interpret the use of digital media in relation to readers or users of information viewed as producers or constructors of their own meaning and identity (e.g., Bolter & Grusin, 1999; Landow, 1992; Poster, 1995). Such a perspective on the move from print to electronic literacy generally does not distinguish between the literal intention of an author or designer and a rhetorical strategy which frames and elicits responses by an audience or the "receivers" of communication, in short, a view of electronic media as ultimately a source of contingent or accidental meaning and discrete texts of information. A critique will be made of the limitations and contradictions of a general hypermedia perspective as a basis for engaging with and going beyond - not rejecting or denying - the often innovative and useful contributions of hypermedia theorists to seek a more integrated, relevant, and grounded theory of electronic literacy in terms of a communications approach. This article thus attempts to practice as well as reflect the kind of "dialogical" approach to knowledge and human interaction advocated by Ricoeur when, for instance, challenging Derrida's poststructuralist delineation of writing and speaking as separate systems of communication (Ricoeur, 1976, 1978) - Derrida being one of the key references for a general hypermedia perspective. On this basis, it suggests that a "rhetoric of design" is perhaps a missing link providing a convergent focus for developing further an inclusive framework of electronic literacy which incorporates Internet communication as well as hypertext and interactive multimedia.