Bolter: Writing Spaces - Pt. 1

Jay David Bolter’s Writing Space has by far been the juiciest read for me so far. The connections he makes between the history of writing – with particular attention to writing spaces – and the future of writing have long been a subject of great interest to me. As both an undergraduate and graduate student at UMD, I took several courses in Book History and New Media studies concurrently, which allowed me to think about the connections between historical media shifts and current ones. What is ironic, though, is that I never had the opportunity to read Bolter’s great book in any of those courses.

I also enjoy the insights that Bolter provides on the act of writing itself; I think that is really what makes his book so timeless. I think one his most exciting ideas about hypertext writing is when he compares linked Web pages to items in a sentence. There is a lot of potential here to begin thinking about “grammars” of connectivity in hypertext. What kinds of logic do people use when they make the decision to link one page to another? How would one describe those logics? Could one, with enough analysis and observation of various Web sites, begin to discern specific linking patterns that might vary by Web site type or genre (consumer Web sites, blogs, facebook, personal Web sites, etc.)? Would such a study be useful?

Bolter also tackles the issue of technological determinism. He argues against Walter Ong’s (and some others) notion of how “writing restructures consciousness” (19). Bolter argues that writing – in whatever form it happens to be taking at a given historical moment – does not on its own structure the way we think. Until I read this, I had always thought the opposite – that our thinking processes mirror our writing processes. Now, however, I think Bolter makes a more nuanced point: while writing does have its influence on our thinking, it does not act alone and it is a two-way street. Our thinking influences the act and form of writing, just as it influences and is influenced by other cultural phenomena.