Reader/Writer Relationship Changing Using these principles, an online news story becomes more like a Sunday package with related sidebars than a simple news story. Whether the story contains links to other Web pages or links to topics within the same page, nonlinear structure changes the writer- reader relationship. The writer relinquishes control over the information to the reader. Sven Birkerts, author of The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age, says hypertext "changes the entire system of power upon which the literary experience has been predicated.” Once a reader is enabled to collaborate, participate or in any way engage the text as an empowered player who has some say in the outcome of the game, the core assumptions of reading are called into question," Birkerts writes.
The imagination is liberated from the constraints of being guided at every step by the author." But giving the reader freedom of choice in paths to follow can disrupt comprehension. Birkerts describes his experience of reading a hypertext fiction story created in chunks and links to different sections as a constant interruption: "The reading surface was fractured, rendered collage-like by the appearance of starred keywords and suddenly materialized menu boxes."
The imagination is liberated from the constraints of being guided at every step by the author." But giving the reader freedom of choice in paths to follow can disrupt comprehension. Birkerts describes his experience of reading a hypertext fiction story created in chunks and links to different sections as a constant interruption: "The reading surface was fractured, rendered collage-like by the appearance of starred keywords and suddenly materialized menu boxes."
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