E-mail address:
dreinkin@coe.uga.edu

Suddenly, I've become easily accessible to thousands of readers, some of whom might take issue with what I've written here and who now have the power to express their views directly to me and to others. Now, that's an inspiration for honesty and informality and humility. Something else could happen too, especially if readers were linked on a listserv or bulletin board discussion group. What I've written might become not a final indisputable and unchangeable document but only the initiation of an ongoing dialogue and explication of ideas. The authoritative finality of this article as a printed document would be subverted, being replaced by a democracy of ideas in which, by definition, many more individuals participate. Writing in such an environment also becomes inherently collaborative, as opposed to the manufactured collaboration we create in classrooms where we often conceptualize writing as essentially a solitary activity.

In fact, I find it ironic that some individuals resist the idea of integrating computer technology into their conceptions of literacy by arguing that computers are dehumanizing or that they undermine the democratic values of universal literacy we cherish. That argument seems plausible, I think, only if we do not seriously consider how the technology of print may by comparison also limit the furthering of humane and democratic goals. The recent actions taken by some repressive governments to limit citizens' access to the Internet illustrate how electronic texts are strong agents of freedom.

As one slogan goes, "information strives to be free," and it is clearly much more likely to achieve that status when information is communicated in digital rather than printed form. Biases against linking computer technology and cherished notions of literacy are also reinforced by a dominant theme in literature and film. Stanley Kubrick's menacing HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, Charlie Chaplin's comical victimization by machines in Modern Times, and H.G. Wells' compliant Eloi in Time Machine all play on our fear of vulnerability and possible subservience to sophisticated technologies we may not fully understand and therefore feel we cannot control. To many people, I think, the computer embodies a uniquely powerful representation of that fear, which leads them to ignore computer technology's more potentially liberating and benign attributes.

This shift in power is but one example of the broad implications of electronic textual forms that may require that literacy be substantively reconceptualized. Conceptually, electronic texts more literally operationalize concepts such as voice, audience, and interactions between a reader and writer, which are largely figurative expressions in printed modes of communication. It isn't hard to experience palpably the concept of audience, voice, and the potential of interaction when one is (I am) poised over the return key ready to distribute an opinionated e-mail message to 1,000 colleagues around the world. It gives new meaning to the biblical injunction "my words shall not return empty to my mouth."

While many implications of this conceptual shift for helping children become literate may require serious long-term reflection, I think we can immediately recognize and enjoy some of its benefits even within the framework of conventional literacy. For example, popular children's authors have gone online to interact in real-time chat rooms with children. Children have electronic pen pals. The melding of reading and authoring can be enjoyed in electronic fiction that invites students to create their own narrative and even to add new characters and events. We can use electronic forms of communication to encourage students to play devil's advocate with conflicting ideas, abandoning the need to write from a single perspective. For example, some of my own students have created a hypertextual version of Little Red Riding Hood's adventures by allowing the reader to move freely between the perspectives of Little Red Riding Hood, the Big Bad Wolf, and Grandma.

In fact, many fields, including our own, might benefit from abandoning a single-minded authorial voice as the model for its scholarly literature, substituting instead a multivocal metadiscourse along with an obligation to acknowledge the well articulated opposing views of knowledgeable opponents. What would our great debates look like if participants in a dialog were expected to acknowledge the most prominent opposing views or acknowledge any of their own doubt about evolving ideas? I believe electronic reading and writing has the potential to promote a less authoritative, and maybe a less combative discourse, although one might argue for the opposite effect judging from some of the acrimonious exchanges on many listservs. It may be possible, however, that the prolific defensive flaming that afflicts many listserv discussions is analogous to the bright flash of light one sees before a light bulb burns out. In other words, it may be the last gasp of those whose authorial privilege is being co-opted by the more open access of digital communication.

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Reading Online, www.readingonline.org
Posted May 1997
Published by the International Reading Association, Inc.   ISSN 1096-1232