Print Analogues

Previous rhetorics of hypertext have proceeded on the assumption that links are directly analogous to prose transitions, page sequence or other connective structures in print (Slatin 1990). Thus Landow (1987) in his groundbreaking discussion of hypertext rhetoric proposes a system of "arrivals and departures" and Carlson insists that hypertext must evolve structures that duplicate the functionality of print. These approaches conceptualize the link as a direct connection, a linear conduit from one lexial stability to another -- not surprising given that early hypertext models tended to implement links as fairly simple, hard-wired transitional operators.

MORE HOME MAP INDEX