In is book Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literarure, Espen J. Aarseth provides an incisive critique of the claims and implications presented by Lanham, O’Donnel, and Deibert. His ideas are insightful and articulate, and deserving of the space devoted to the following, several quotes.  Aarseth writes:

     "The crucial issue here is whether technology (any technology) by itself can promote readers to authorship." 

    "This question is of course deeply political; the perceived gap between consumer (reader) and producer (author) is one of the most profound ideological divides in the social reality of modern Western society. (Even to equate "reader" with "consumer" is a controversial value judgment.) To elevate a consumer group to producerhood is a bold political statement; and in the production and consumption of symbolic artifacts (texts) the boundary between these positions becomes a highly contested ground." 

     "If…it is true, as some hypertext theorists claim, that the author and reader are becoming more and more the same person and that digital technology is responsible, then it ought to be possible to support this claim solely by observable contemporary social phenomena and without the unreliable testimony of the poststructuralists, whose arguments are about written discourse in general and not about certain specific technologies hardly known at their time…" 

     "…the library is more than books on shelves; it is also an ideology, an ethics of information; and this ethics is radically similar to the ideas and efforts behind free information providers such as the Guttenburg project and other sources on the Internet hypertext system known as the World WideWeb. Through such efforts, the idea of the library is sustained, even as the medium (the shelf) is superseded. More important, neither should be seen as inherently procanonical or anticanonical. Both can be used for both purposes, and from the start they have been used for those seemingly opposed activities: preservation (inclusion) and selection (exclusion) of information." 

     And here his ideas begin to have clear relevance to the specific issues faced by independent publishers competing to have their views amplified by the technology:

     "..even if the digital media allow more intermediate positions for media users, technology in itself has no political program and may be used for oppressive purposes as easily as for liberatory purposes."

          Here, Aarseth asks of the telephone and e-mail, "Are these media democratic" simply because they were developed for exchanging interpersonal messages quickly and at a low cost?

    Aarseth correctly points out that the chances of the very powerful adopting the technology to their distinct advantages are  real and even likely.   He also has a much more grounded and realistic concept of democracy than we have seen in the work of  Lanham and O'Donnel, as he assumes competition and that power will prevail.

     By bringing real questions of power to the fore, Aarseth transcends some of the problems associated with postmodern thought, and brings things back into a focus based on political issues as they actually exist:

     "Those who control a medium technically and economically are always in a position superior to those who do not. Control is of course not the same as active use but, rather, the power to stop that use (censorship) if deemed necessary." 

     Aarseth argues, borrowing from Foucault, that "Authorship depends on a recognition of authorship; it is a social category and not a technological one."

     For Aarseth, it is not a question of authorship, but of the status given to those authors. And, he points out, "Especially in the case of the Web it remains to be seen what kind of status will be given to personal publishers and their documents." 

Birkerts vs. Stephenson and Unsworth.

     Deiberts’ idea of a world existing under the stewardship of powerful, cooperative, transnational entities is perhaps not even that far away, but the benevolence of these organizations should be questioned.  As Deiberts points out, corporations are increasingly setting their own agenda across national boundaries. This is due in large part to the advent of fast, reliable electronic communication. A corporation can have its highly paid, educated, white executives, managers, and technicians in a lovely, self-contained suburban office campus, while its workers toil for 35 cents an hour in Singapore where there are no messy regulations that disagree with its bottom line. Orders get to the shop floor just as quickly as if the decision-makers were right there. Are any "authors" voices excluded from this process? How long will it take for the "interstitial" power of these workers to equal the real power of these companies?

     One thing is for certain, it will be physically easier to publish in an electronic environment than in print. More people will be able to publish online than can afford to do so in print. But it should not be forgotten that control over the free dissemination of this material quite possibly rests beyond the power of the small publisher. It means very little to say there will be "as many publishers as readers." This says nothing of the quality or diversity of the published works, the context in which they will appear, or who they will be available to. Lanham and others suggest a "radically democratized" electronic future that implies all sorts of readers and all sorts of publishers (if indeed there is any distinction between the two). The simple fact remains that there are no readers for specific kinds of publications when no one is receptive to the ideas contained within.  As a result, there are few publishers putting out  materials that contain radically progressive ideas.

     The computer itself does not set the goal of achieving a more democratic world in which utilitarinan, egalitarian views achieve controlling prominence.   People set that goal.  Perhaps the computer can help, but not until we are consciously aware of our own aims.
 

End of section.        Read next section.         View site map.