Tuesday 17 May 2011

Here come the floods.

In the chapter by Katherine Hayes, Electronic Literature, she asks if the "dissemination mechanisms of the internet and the Web, by opening publication to everyone, result in a flood of worthless drivel?" (2008: 2). This is a tough question to answer directly, and definitely cannot be dealt a simple yes or no response.

First of all, who is to judge whether something is worthless or not. Different things appeal to different people. Writing or ideas that seem worthless to most people might have the strongest meaning of all to a specific group. If there's even one person out there who values the content, then it's no longer worthless. Not to mention the fact that it obviously is worth something to the person posting the content in the first place.

I think the overall idea that Hayes is getting at is that more widely appreciated information may start to lose focus in the sea of information that open publication allows for. It may become more and more difficult to find the things you're searching for when things that you're not searching for keep popping up instead.

References:
Hayes, Katherine N. (2008) Electronic Literature. University of Notre Dame: Indiana. pp 1-4.

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