Annonated Bibliography 2:

Murray, Janet H.  “Restructuring Space, Time, Story and Text in Advanced Multimedia Learning Environment.”  Sociomedia: Multimedia, Hypermedia and the Social Construction of Knowledge.  Ed. Edward Barrett.  Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1992.  (chapter 15)

Summary

            In this article, Murray explores the different perspectives where one can approach in meaning creation.  Adding moving video, sound and animation to texts is now possible with hypermedia.  She used two texts to illustrate her points on these various uses, employing the following four approaches.

            First, Murray mentioned spatial structure, where the reader experiences “surrogate travel”.  Here the reader gains control over physical space, by clicking on a map, he is brought instantly to that place in video.  The reader then continues his journey by selecting to move in all directions.

            Next, Murray pointed out a temporal structure, whereby the reader is alerted to the presence of historical material along the footpath.  The reader can then click on this historical sign to move back to a historical view of the same location.

            Third, Murray spelled out the story structure.  This is similar to most writings on hypertexts, in which the reader is given many pathways to continue his story.  The story could be entirely different for each reader due to its different developments depending on the options they chose.

            Finally, Murray wrote about the textual structure, which simply means that the reader is able to switch between texts and images, in both directions.

Review

            This is a very interesting article.  Murray not only presented with illustrations her four main structures in hypermedia creation.  She used two different texts to give the reader a clearer picture of her ideas.

            Where most writers wrote mainly about the different pathways in which a story may develop, by the choice of the reader, Murray differentiate it into four main structures.  Her illustrations gave me a better picture of how hypermedia can be so different from the printed texts.

            As for its relevance with Barthes’ “writerly" text, it is very clear here as Murray at every point mange to give examples and explanations on how the story lie in the hands of the reader.  The reader can manipulate the path of the story by the four approaches Murray listed, thus the point “many satisfying ways to end a story”.

            I find Murray’s illustration very vivid and it gave me an idea of how pictorial a hypertext can be.  The experience of being able to move around in a video, the power of moving along various space and time, and actively participating in the story’s development, gave the reader full control in this creation of meaning.