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Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1: Introduction
In 1987 Michael Heim, in one of the first philosophical studies on the impact that word
processing was and would be having on our society and culture, posed the following
initial question:
Does the conversion of twentieth-century culture to a new writing technology
portend anything like the revolutionary changes brought about by the invention of
the printing press and the widespread development of literacy? Ifso, what are we to
make of the changes?'
These questions mark the beginning of active and fierce debates on the subject of
computer writing and its impact on contemporary culture and literacy, which, more than
ten years later, still remain largely unanswered.
These on-going debates have been both caused and influenced by a rapid development
of computer technology over the last two decades, which have fundamentally changed
the reading public's attitude and access to the electronic medium. Computers have
become part of our lives, either disguised as the technology that operates cash-points,
supermarket check-outs and many other everyday features we could not do without, or
visible on top of our desk at home or in the office at work. We use them to create texts
and even more to edit them, using the facilities of a word-processor to shift words,
sentences or whole sections around, to delete and add parts oftexts at any time. We also
use them to distribute our texts, to pass them on to others on disks orthrough computer
networks, for increasingly the aim of word-processing is no longer the printed text, but
text that will remain in electronic form: eMail, electronic journals, library catalogues etc.
Computerised text has become widespread, familiar and indispensable.
, Michael Heim, Electric Language: A Philosophical Study ofWordProcessing (New Haven and London:
Yale University Press, 1987), p.z.
Chapter I - page I