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the basic elements of
the project
When constructing the rudiments of this project authors Michael Blitz and Louise Krasniewicz aimed to examine the role, scope and influence of Arnold Schwarzenegger on culture as a postmodern icon, superman, myth, dream. In choosing the form of hypertext to present their discussion, the authors wished to create a non-linear method of investigation and exploration to enable the examination their subject both along and against the grain. The design choices made influence how the project and subject is understood historically and hypertexturally. Multiple paths through the information enable the reader to choose their journey and the way they construct meaning on the way. There is a clear effort at creating a wholistic, thick narrative, with many different types of sources and a diverse range of ideologies discussed. Technology is utilised to assist with meaning-making as well, with several novel and useful features that improve the site's character such as the small sound bites that load each fresh page that is opened or the drop down menus in the essay that offer tangents to the argument being discussed. However, there are certain weaknesses inherent in the design and content which act as barriers between the reader and the source, problematising the construction of meaning and the historicising of the content. There are three key parts to this project which make up the narrative as a whole. By navigating through these areas: the essay, the dreams and the front page, we are expected and directed to construct meaning from the evidence provided. The elements are certainly rich, however, they are not always coherent or convincing in their presentation. The essay forms one of the pillars of the site, with its detailed discussion of the interrelations between dreams, postmodernity and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The hypertext utilised in the essay contributes to the construction of meaning and to the presentation of a certain visual style, however, many of the sites the authors choose to link to are disgraceful examples of hypertext: information dumps and electronic essays rather than integrated hypertext projects. The authors assert that the
dreams used as a basis for reference in this work reflects the cultural
development of Arnold as a multiple entity; a 'new' man with reproductive
power, a superhuman, a cyborg, a myth, a dream and a god. Their justification
of the use of dreams as research tools is a convincing piece of logic but
it none the less lacks the authority of an academically approved source.
While it may help to dream of one's subject in order to glean the many
ways of seeing, the necessity of detailing this process in academic context
is yet to be established. The hypertext utilised here is possibly the most
compromising in the site. In their zeal to present an open narrative with
the scope for personal interpretation built in, the authors concluded that
it were best to present the dreams 'raw', with no annotation or qualifications
attached. This contributes to the at times disorganised feel of the project,
with its occasional poor grammar and spelling errors particularly disappointing.
The front
page is probably the best example of the ease and style with which
hypertext can construct meaning and historical interpretation. The image
based navigation is very user friendly and untroubled by the arbitrary
hierarchies imposed by a list. If the rest of the site could be as sophisticated
and simple as this initial page it could be said that the authors had utilised
all the features of hypertext to form a new breed of dense hypertextural
scholarship. Unfortunately, the decidedly non-linear framework established
in the first page is not maintained throughout the rest of the site, which
suffers from lengthy expositions and unappealing blocks of text.
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