Gameology: Commentary and Resources for the Game Studies Community

Like Jay Bolter’s co-written work, Remediation: Understanding New Media, Writing Space serves to both synthesize important aspects of new and existing media while focusing on how writing, as itself a technology, changes based on the technology it uses. While rather brief – Writing Space is barely over 200 pages – Bolter deftly manages disparate questions relating to new media and media studies in general by focusing on them through the lens of writing spaces. By framing the work with the notion of writing spaces, Bolter weaves critical theory, writing technology, writing apparatuses, textual and visual aspects of writing, and the history of writing in print and other media together for his analysis. As such, the book is most easily applied as an introduction to issues surrounding new media or composition studies; however, it also serves as a resource for advanced work on the interrelations between media and writing technologies. The focus on interrelations and connections makes this second edition of Writing Space a valuable resource for all composition or media scholars, as well as a useable introduction to many of the current arguments in both fields.

Bolter begins his analysis by explaining writing spaces as spaces that include both written products and modes of written production, including all illuminated texts, printed books, web pages, and hypertext fiction, as well as pens, typewriters, and word processors. Then, Bolter configures his analysis based on those spaces of process and product in order to connect writing history, technologies of writing, and cultures of writing within one fluid discussion. Any study of new media that seeks to differentiate new media from print media needs to include a discussion of the written process and product. Bolter manages to do this under the frame of writing spaces and of technologies of writing. However, in his discussion of writing spaces, with the move to the more visual new media writing spaces, Bolter focuses specifically on certain new media forms rather than a more comprehensive approach to new media. While a more comprehensive approach is not necessary, especially given the length of the book, the concept of writing spaces seems to require a more comprehensive analysis. Yet, Bolter's analysis aids in making connections using the selected examples between new and existing media and also questions the newness of “new” media. Bolter’s analysis is more open and less linear that works like Lev Manovich’s The Language of New Media, which connects new media most specifically to film; instead, Writing Space offers a more holistic approach to writing technology and new media that embraces the history of writing as an evolutionary process.

Bolter also examines the historical and structural shift occurring in this “late age of print,” which effectively synthesizes underlying conceits in the work of other media scholars like Marshall McLuhan's The Medium is the Message and Gregory Ulmer's Internet Invention: From Literacy to Electracy. McLuhan and Ulmer present larger arguments about the significance of the changing technologies of writing, while Writing Space instead offers mainly an examination of these changes. Because Writing Space mainly covers the changing status of writing, without presenting a larger argument, it remains an introductory text. However, it also briefly addresses larger arguments, as Bolter continues his arguments from Remediation to discuss the different ways in which linear print writing changes when it is remediated into digital and multi-linear works. Bolter and Richard Grusin coined the term “remediation” in their book Remediation, defining it to mean the process by which “the newer medium takes the place of the older one, borrowing and reorganizing the characteristics of writing in the older medium and reforming its cultural space” (Writing Space 23). Working from the concept of remediation, Bolter argues that writing is an evolving process with image and text once again used in powerful combination as they were once used in older forms like medieval manuscripts. Bolter references a variety of past and current hybrid forms, including internet websites, interactive fiction, video games, and other digital texts within his analysis of remediated writing spaces, but the prominently hybrid visual works of comics and children’s books are infrequently mentioned. While in many media works, the infrequency could be seen as a limited view or truncation of media studies, given the scope and brevity of this work, along with its inclusive structuring, these are indicative of example choices rather than negligent omissions.

Following the changing nature of print, and of writing spaces as they become more visual, Bolter next examines the changing status of the apparatus of books and of the reader. With the digital changes for individual books comes a changed conception of libraries and digital libraries – this provides a solid foundation for much of the work going on with many digital archiving projects and with new methods for indexing those projects with the changed format. For instance, the International Children’s Library aims to provide books online that can be searched by using colors, and by terms that relate to how the books make readers feel. This connects to both the changing nature of books, libraries, and the ways in which digital media are being altered to signal a new idea of print, all of which are topics covered in this book. Additionally, the changing space of writing and archiving directly relates to academic publishing as more programs offer online and open source journals to avoid the expensive costs and restricted access that come with many traditional journal publications.

Bolter then connects the changes in writing, archiving, and reading to the changes in and implications for fiction writing and critical theory. Bolter addresses hypertext fiction in electronic works, like those by noted authors Shelley Jackson and Michael Joyce, as well as hypertextual print works. After a concrete discussion of those works and the connections between electronic and print texts, Bolter then discusses critical theory in relation to new media. While these sections provide general background which would prove useful for any introduction to new media studies, they seem overly introductory. However, Bolter consistently frames the book under the concept of writing spaces, thus making fruitful connections even in somewhat rudimentary sections.

The final two sections of the book are perhaps the most interesting: “Writing the Self” and “Writing Culture.” These sections place Writing Space within larger discussions of composition, rhetoric, writing philosophy, gender, race, thought processes and their relationship to writing. The section on “Writing Culture” in particular connects to both writing cultures and writing communities. While Bolter focuses mainly on cultural changes in the use of writing and potential changes in culture at large for writing, as visual communication becomes more technologically accessible with high-speed video connections, this section still connects to the existing uses of writing in culture and to writing communities. Writing communities include blogging communities, which have recently come under increased examination in composition studies for their impact on writing and reading methods as well as for their use in terms of forum communities and many other writing-based groups. These final two sections are the most pivotal because they examine the changing nature of writing spaces and how these spaces are changing not only how people write and how texts are made, but how people view themselves, communicate, and develop communities based on writing.

The final chapter of Writing Space is actually a note to the book’s companion website, which displays some of the arguments in the book by providing an alternate writing space to that of the book. The final chapter of the first version of Writing Space was actually a diskette that offered minor additional notes on the text. Bolter notes:

If the hypertext diskette for the first edition was meant to provide a shadow text, a metaphoric replacement of the printed text, the Web site is instead an extension, a remediation, of the printed text, containing additional information, corrections, and improvements. (214)

By including a website for the book, Bolter critically analyzes and illustrates the changing structure of writing spaces such that Writing Space offers a focused look at the evolution of writing and spaces of writing. It also provides a solid reference for those interested in new media, or in Bolter's fascinating work, which include his other co-written works, Remediation: Understanding New Media and Windows and Mirrors: Interaction Design, Digital Art, and the Myth of Transparency. As such, Writing Space is an important entry into new media and composition studies.