PURELY ADDITIVE? Although hypertext has the potential to create totally new kinds of history, its theorists acknowledge that at present it often takes a purely additive form, merely transferring a page from a history book onto a page from a history website (1). Against this mundane reality is the promise of hypertext explored by theorists like George Landow, who describe "A fully hypertextual system" which "employs a particularly important form, one-to-many linking, which permits readers to obtain different information from the same textual site" (2) The two sites examined in this analysis offer exactly what Landow describes, one-to-many linking, but with a variety of limitations. There is an inherent tension between the unitary, and often linear structure of the main textual site and the efforts to create multiple pathways out of that structure.

INTERACTIVITY VS. IMMERSION: Janet Murray has argued that the two key components of any digital site are that they are 'interactive' and 'immersive' (3). By the former she means that websites must have a certain interactive structure, by the latter she means a quality which can "make digital creations seem as explorable and extensive as the actual world." But Murray fails to explore the possibility that these two concerns can contradict eachother. A well-structured interactive site risks limiting the 'immersive' possibilities of the digital world, while a totally immersive site would presumably have little overriding structure at all. This is the very contradiction seen in these Watergate sites. Although Watergate has many possible narratives, they inevitably must be ordered, collated, and presented in some way, and in doing so, this limits the narratives. Faced with choosing between structured interactivity and total immersion, they have chosen the former, with a token allowance to the latter in the form of a full search option. The challenge for future sites is to somehow bridge this gap.
 

To begin the analysis, visit one of the levels of Watergate below.

To find out more about the structure of this site, visit the Site Map.
 
 
 

                                                                       Level 3       Level 2         Level 1

Site Map             Introduction           YOU ARE HERE  Hypertext Theory