WHAT’S A
HYPERTEXT?
Michael
Joyce distinguís two kinds of hypertext according to
their actions:
EXPLORATORY HYPERTEXT
Exploratory hypertext which most often occurs
in read-only form, allows readers to control the transformation of a defined
body of material.
This kind of reading of an exploratory
hypertext is what we might call empowered interaction. The transitional electronic
text makes an uneasy marriage with its reader. It says: you may do these
things, including some I have not anticipated.
CONSTRUCTIVE HYPERTEXT
The second kind of hypertext, constructive
hypertext, offers an electronic alternative to the grey ghetto alongside the
river of light. Constructive hypertext requires a capability to create, change,
and recover particular encounters within a developing body of knowledge. Like
the network, conference, classroom or any other form of the electronic text,
constructive hypertext are “versions of what they are becoming, a structure for
what does not yet exist”.
As a true electronic text, the constructive
hypertext differs from the transitional exploratory hypertext in that its
interaction is reciprocal rather than empowered (Bruner 1986).