Page 35 - Cyberculture and New Media

26 Formalisms of Digital Text
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sequentially posted messages. There is also the genus of the blog, the online
equivalent of the diary, with journal entries posted in reverse chronological
order. But the pithy unit of writing that comprises these cases is distinct from
the shape of expository writing: the online post comprising each of these
forms are discrete and compacted assertions that lack the dimensional
scenery-setting context of the chapter from the world of print. Except for the
still comparatively rare case of digital literature, prevalent online forms
distinguish the anatomical core of digital writing as being point-based rather
than story-based. Further justifying our view of the basic semantic unit as the
point are the extreme forms that promote it: media formats and software
exclusively dedicated to creating and organizing and displaying points: the
presentation package (e.g., Microsoft PowerPoint™), the idea processor (e.g.,
Inspiration), and the semantic drawing system (e.g., Microsoft Visio™). We
might also note, in contrast, that no major software exists exclusively for
1
topic-making . The comparatively small thematic unit is evident at the
software interface, invariably designed to manipulate diminutive units of text.

Figure 1. A Microsoft Visio™ drawing

Figure 2. An Inspiration™ diagram