Can video games be considered hypertext narratives? How? Why?

• games is not about storytelling; a story is not needed to be a game
• the intention of a text, which is a narrative, is to communicate; yet it does not really have to be interactive in a game
• gaming is just a technology to get played with
• gaming does not involved win and lose; while we don’t have to win story

 How do you actually write a hypertext narrative?

• Hypertext is an emerging structure
• When you write a hypertext narrative, each part is individual and they make sense by themselves. We don’t have to read all to understand one part.

It is the first lecture back since the mid-semester break.

Adrian took the examples of “a Hundred Thousand Million Poems”  and a children’s book, with 10 pages and 3 flaps on each page which can make like around 1000 combinations. As for the poems, there is a set of ten sonnets, which are printed on the card with each line on a separated strip. Any lines from a sonnet can be combined with any from the nine others. Adrian used these examples to explain the idea that hypertext has endless possibilities, more than only in the way of “creating your own adventure”, which actually has limited routes.

Brian said that genre is a kind of classification. A genre in the industry is for audience formation; let audience be familiar with certain type of stuff. It relates to the media literacy – the ability of people to analyse, evaluate and create media in a variety of forms and genres. Documentary is a genre? Or there are different genre of documentaries ? Adrian further mentioned about the difference between fiction and documentary: fiction is talking about a world while documentary is talking about the world.

I took another note of the point that authors can’t control the readers’ minds. Authors cannot control how audience interpret their narratives. “All media is dead”. It is interesting to learn that not the author, but his narrative has the personality. Authors have things to communicate in their narratives; at the same time audience decode in the way they think is reasonable.

I like the points Jasmine raised by comparing the online content to a personal diary. I am fascinated by the idea that the possibility of our stuff being read by anyone has influenced on how and what we write rather than the actual viewers. The things I write in my journal is so much different from what I actually write in my blog because nobody will actually see it. I reckon it is more about one’s purpose on doing it; so it is still validated even if nobody views or consumes it. Adrian mentioned that like writers still write even though their work will not be published. At least to us, what we write, as Adrian said, even for an imaginary audience, write it well, then the imagined will eventually become real one.

There is also the discussion about hypertext. Hypertext does not only refer to just multiple meanings. From Adrian, the thing we read or watch each time changes in itself, what we are actually reading is also multiple. I think it is about how readers can navigate and make connections with the pieces of context together rather than just read between the lines. Hypertext let readers interpret things more than what the relation the text being arranged. Hypertext has allowed readers to digest the meaning of texts according to their knowledge and perception, even their mood. I can’t recall who but one lecturer explained that the first experience of reading the past literacy readings will be different from the second time in the future. Relating to hypertext, it is more about revealing readers the things they have not noticed before . Authors may use hypertext to give readers informed ideas; yet our reading still determines how the link goes.

I like the other idea that Adrain bought up that books are now important only in their relationship with literature. Look at how many textbooks and cookbooks are actually online; in the e-book format. Books are dead in this sense. For literature, the experience probably comes first. E-readers cannot give the feeling to readers with for example, the crisp papers and a leather binding of the physical book; the experience in reading a literature. Digitalisation of literary texts only provides the ease and fast access to the information we need; but most important, it no longer holds the value of appreciating the texts on paper.

 

Here is a Youtube video about hypertext fiction I find interesting. They described hypertext fiction as “choose your own adventure” based online.

 

 

What Adrian said about “the content is not king, connection is” sticks in my mind for a whole day. What I take away from it is that rather than to contribute the content, to have response and  communication with the contents people contributed is also important. The job title of a “content producer” sounds cool and creative. Instead of simply produce what appeals to the people concerns, Adrian encourges us to be the creators – to explore and discover new contents. I took away one of the classmates’ idea of amateur. It is so true that so many young genius or amateurs out there are more successfully than me. I guess why I bother to do so… Maybe I can just drop out of university and focus on producing media. A university degree can’t help to be outstanding in the media world definitely. However, Adrian stated that we have to sell our experience; and that is what we can gain from this course. “How to collaborate, how to work in/on the network, how to think creatively and critically even when it is all change”. I do have to start accumulating my experience on making marvellous stuff.

I love Adrian’s dancing metaphor to describe Networked Media. “No one knows where it leads and no one knows the steps”. This got me thinking about both the future of this mysterious media industry and mine. The destiny remains unknown. Nobody even me can tell where we are going after university, or just with this course. I guess probably it is hard to find our steps or sometimes there is no way to imagine what the direction we should go; yet we should still keep dancing. It is like an adventure. We shouldn’t give up as I think we are already on the right track – being here. Before that, Adrian asked at the beginning of the lecture if we feel like we need an university degree to get by jobs in future. Well…who knows? Keep dancing and we will find out. All we need to do now is to prepare ourselves in this dance to take up any challenge.

“Knowledge is constructed”. Everybody knows something; knows a lot about that and less about this. Somebody creates things; certain things they are interested or good at. We all see things differently and so we learn things in our own way according to our preferences. I reckon that is the notion of blogging. In our blogs, we post things that are constructed in the way we want. Others read our blogs; in that way our stuff become a knowledge to them and they learn it.

I am excited for the next week’s lecture.

Here comes the second week of the unlecture.

From now on, we are not allowed to use laptops during the lecture. It does not affect me much as I usually stick to the old-school style notes taking. At first  I found it quite unreasonable, this subject is NETWORKED media and about how we fit ourselves into this technological modern time. But it is true that when on laptop, everybody is multi-tasking. Probably not everyone is 100% focusing on the lecturers.

Then we were asked to write a question on a piece of paper for Adrian about the course. I was lost. I found myself looking at the blank paper while everyone handed their paper to Elliot and Jasmine. I didn’t submit a question. Adrian is right. Everyone should have a question; even a simple one. Why couldn’t I think of a stupid question at that moment? I am not afraid of asking a silly question and people laugh at it; I guess I am not used to this fast thinking session. My mind was like empty for a while whenever people asked me to think.

Adrian talked about the copyright issue in the lecture as well. I found it useful. Things on my blog; once I post it, it is mine.