Hypertext and Hypermedia

Linear and Non-linear

Footnotes

References

Other Advantages

Hypertext and Hypermedia are new ways of presenting and browsing through information. They have been made possible by electronic technology, and need a computer to work. They are revolutionary in that they enable us to absorb information in a more natural way than with paper-based books and pictures.

Hypertext is text which contains links to other texts. Hypermedia is hypertext which also contains other media, such as graphics, sound, and video. Both these terms were coined in 1965 by Ted Nelson, a visionary guru of hypertext.

ABOVE: A map of a hypertext web of interconnected articles. Each box represents an article, with elements of that article inside. The starting point is at the top right. You can jump around between articles any way you want.

The importance of hypertext and hypermedia has to do with the difference between linear and non-linear thinking. You may have heard about the difference between our left brain and the right brain. Researchers have discovered that for most people, the left brain controls logical thought processes, like math calculations, while the right-brain is where we do our intuitive thinking, such as when we draw, paint or play music. Depending on our characteristics, each person generally favours one side of the brain over the other.

Hypertext and Hypermedia allow us to do left-brain things in a right-brain way. Because we use both sides of our brain together, not only are they more fun, they also let us use our full mental capacity.

The World Wide Web uses both hypertext and hypermedia to build text and graphical pages that can be read by anyone with a suitable Internet connection and reader software. Using a desktop computer and a modem, you can feast on up-to-the-minute information from sources all over the planet, quickly coming up to speed on the state of any art or science. Or, you can become an information publisher, at a very reasonable cost.

There are other advantages to online, electronic hypermedia.

On to the Summary

Back to the Overview of Web Publishing

Up to the Contents page