Virtuality of Cyberpunk, Cyberspace, and Cyberbanks

I remember teaching a composition class about the Internet and email, which were created for military use originally, in case, Russia attacked and destroy all forms of communication. The students loved it. . . . . I was the first in my university to offer such lessons. I was helping with Information Technology (IT), for I was originally a coder. I also taught classes on science fiction. . . The two merged and predicted the future. . .

Before the rise of the Internet, one science fiction writer, William Gibson,  came up with the idea of cyberspace.    Gibson created a new genre of science fiction called cyberpunk fiction, as he explained we will live in ". . .a consensual hallucination experienced by billions of legitimate operators daily,  in every nation. . .  A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system"  (Neuromancer 51).

Hypertext as a Vision of the Future

In the 1960's, Theodor H. Nelson created the term based on the idea of  interlinked, non-linear texts.  This would revolutionize the way information was stored and connected.  The power of connecting limitless information would change our idea of knowledge and of rhetoric.

World Wide Web

Later with the invention by Tim Berners-Lee (not Al Gore) of the World Wide Web,  the vision of a hypertext in cyberspace came into being.  The question remains is how does this bold new representation of electric discourse work when compared to other forms of discourse.  What is electronic rhetoric under hypertext discourse?

Second Orality

To Walter Ong,  the invention of writing remains one of the greatest technological advances of all time that alters human consciousness by forever changing the way we think and act.  Writing as technology has evolved into what he calls Second Orality.  First Orality occurred before the invention of the alphabet and  writing, where human voice and memory ruled. Now we no longer value text like we once did. In the age of Second Orality, video, audio, and television merge into hypertext or hypermedia.  George Landow uses hypertext and hypermedia interchangeably (3) .   

The Death of the Book

The very idea and need for  books and libraries now comes into question.  Reading was for Cicero a necessary part of improving rhetorical skills and so was writing.  With hypertext, our definition of the book or reading comes into question.

The Death of the Author

According to Roland Barthes, a postmodern world can no longer justify the idea of an author or self.  Ownership and copyright laws were ideas created by Modernists because of the printing press and capitalism. Hypertext discourse changes our idea of the book and the author.  Questions about the validity of terms like plagiarism come into question.

Postmodern Audience and Invention

In a classical sense, the audience was moved by the persuasive elements of  the rhetor.  Invention was used as ways to discover the means to influence the audience.  In Modernity, the Enlightened view of life created a discourse modeled after Ramus and the rise of science.  In Postmodernity and the rise of Electric Rhetoric,  changes are underway.  With hypertext theory, if the author is now not important, who controls the discourse.  Thus, the reader or audience is no longer passive and now activates the discourse. How does the reader help invent meaning?

Arrangement and Non-linearity

In classical rhetoric, arrangement was one of the important canons.  The very order of a disputation can change the effectiveness of a speech or text. In hypertext, non-linearity or non-order becomes the new rule. How does one create a text without arrangement? What happens when there is no beginning and no ending?  Who knows where a reader enters a text or leaves it?

V-Rhetoric

The Internet is again about to change radically.  When the bandwidth increases and videos can be sent  at a much faster rate, the merging of film, radio, book, and Internet will be on the way. Perhaps the next generation will merge hypermedia with virtual reality.

Our understanding of these emerging discourse systems challenges the very way we view e-rhetoric or v-rhetoric (electric or virtual forms of rhetoric). Are you ready for the challenge?

Works Cited

Gibson, William. Neuromancer. New York City: Ace Books, 1984.

Landow, George. Hypertext 2.0: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory  and Technology.  John Hopkins University Press:  Baltimore, 1997.

Ong, Walter.  Technologizing of the Word.  New York: Routledge, 1988.