Cyber, hyper och multi: Några reflektioner kring IT-ålderns textbegrepp

Abstract

This article is a cross-disciplinary discussion of the concept of text in connection to modern information technology. It takes its point of departure in the most common (literary) hypertext theories, where multisequentialiy is one of the key notions. The idea of the ideal hypertext as a pioneering phenomenon, with a text-internal multisequential structure made possible by digital technology, is confronted with the interactional and dynamic text concept of discourse analysis. It is argued that the potential of multisequentiality is fundamental to all visual texts and connected to the multimodality and materiality of visual meaning-making at large. The degree and kind of multisequentiality of different texts is in this perspective mainly due to genre conventions and practices of use. Two types of common, widely circulated text material are used to exemplify the argument: modern print media (the newspaper Aftonbladet and the weekly magazine Året Runt) and a personal homepage on the Internet (Anna’s and Anders’ homepage).