“Text’s digital life untethers it from specific material support, making it accessible through a variety of interfaces (including the computer, cell phone, tablet, and dedicated e-reader), each of which influences our reading” (Borsuk, 124).
As publishing and books progressed to being more digitalized, the experience of reading these writings has also changed. I think this is a big reason for many writers choosing to publish their work digitally. Publishing digitally allows for more multimedia elements and room to experiment. There is a combination of sound, text, and pictures all in one. This form of publishing takes books to another level, further expanding their format and allowing a more diverse audience.
Thinking of the documentary we watched in class, the artists and writers featured showed their work at a convention. This helped them network and expand on their work. Of course, experiencing their books in the physical way they produced them is a specific experience, but I couldn’t help to wonder how the experience would change if it were to be published online. As the quote from the reading suggests, depending on the interface and how we are reading, our experience will vary. With the introduction of sound in online literature, either reading the words to you or sound effects that add on to the text, another sense of being triggered. This can change the course of how we interpret the words we are reading.
In the future, I don’t think that people will fully switch to digitally publishing. Digital publishing can be seen more as a tool to enhance the audience’s experience and allows for more accessibility to a broader range of readers.