Anyone who has ever used a search engine, such as Google or Bing, to look up information knows that there is a vast amount of information circulating the Internet. Even when narrowing a topic down by typing in a keyword, the results can still be overwhelming. Svenja Adolphs addresses how electronic textual analysis works and why it is still important, even with the changing language structures supported by the Internet.
The Internet, which is quickly becoming a integral tool with which we communicate, uses its own unique language. As Adolphs points out, it is difficult to use traditional methods of textual analysis and study because the Internet’s language is not consistent at all. Furthermore, the Internet uses tools that transcend the sometimes narrow meanings of words. Through images and videos, the Internet is changing the way we communicate:
“Even if we did know the broad categories in which different internet texts would fall, we may not be able to determine their orgin, thus losing important contextual information such as the first language of the autor for example. In addition, the consistency of of the texts themselves may mean that a purely textual analysis might be problematic. This is because many texts on the internet use hyperlinks and images as part of their meaning construction”(73).
Sites such as Facebook and Twitter are changing both communication and language
Some of the more important ideas that I took away from Adolphs’s book were focused on representation and context in relation to the Internet. Since the Internet gave us blogging, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr etc, sharing information and ideas has never been easier. It becomes easy for an article that appears on a notoriously biased political blog to be shared through different followers, bloggers, users etc, until it appears on a site that has a completely different readership. The context of the writing is lost and its meaning changes. If users wish to achieve accurate and effective communication, electronic textual analysis needs to keep in mind the importance of context and the way information is shared.
One of the best examples to show how languages and methods of communication are changing is the idea of the “meme”. Most people think of memes as images or videos with a caption or words. In actuality, the meme is a simply any idea or concept that is passed from person to person. Through the Internet, blogs, emails, videos, etc, these ideas can be passed rather rapidly. With the Internet’s language constantly changing, slang and lingo is constantly fading in and out of style, making it difficult to define and analyze. It is still important, however, to understand the ways language is changing on the Internet. Since the majority of our communication is now occuring electronically, understanding of electronic text is crucial in understanding modern communication.
I think you make a really good point when you say that it is important to understand electronic text in order to understand modern text because when you think about it, no one really communicates in a non-electronic way anymore. It has become the only mode of communication in many aspects of life, and in order to be good communicators it really is crucial to understand how this works. Great post and I really enjoyed your point of view.