Page 110 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report

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language to the enlargement of content through a link to other sources. These folds afford works an open nature and at the same time make it possible to adapt reading to readers’ varying needs, requirements or skills.
Exploratory and immersive interactivity is proposed as the backbone of a poetics of the digital medium, states Celia Turrión11 in her thesis on digital storytelling for children and teenagers. Her arguments are based on various digital theorists who maintain that all the char- acteristics of the electronic text are subordinate to the most determining aspect, interactivity. Ryan, for example, states that “of all the proper- ties [of digital systems] listed above, I regard in- teractivity as the most important. Not all digital texts are interactive, but those that aren't could usually be taken out of the computer and played by another medium.”12 Ryan argues that the term interactivity, although many consider it to be ex- cessively vague, takes on an unequivocal mean- ing when associated with storytelling because it “mandates choice for the user. Every interactive application must give its user a reasonable amount of choice. No choice, no interactivity.”13 In a few cases interactivity can certainly appear to be merely a publicity stunt, but it is essentially an excellent contribution made by digital works.
A different appeal to readers that allows them to greatly customise their reading, both the interface and the reading itinerary, is a major advantage that a digital – not digitised – work offers readers. In an electronic environment, readers can make a number of decisions and perform certain actions to alter the appearance of the work, such as changing the typeface or language, and can also put together their own reading itinerary and even influence the course of events and change the sequences of a story. These possibilities of interaction and customis- ation are a major advantage to readers as they enable them to make screens more ergonomic and the texts more legible by modifying their nature and how they are displayed. They also en-
able them to improve the accessibility of content through audio and even to choose certain levels of access to content depending on their reading skills or knowledge.
Social reading is the sixth and last of the aspects that characterise digital reading. Though the social component is not exclusive to digital reading, as the same wish to socialise and share reading experiences is also found in readers from print. Meeting up with other readers before
or after reading a work is both a motivation
and an enriching experience as it encourages debate and comparison. The wish to put into words and convey what the book transmits also causes us to sharpen our senses, seek a deeper understanding and be more accurate in our inter- pretation of the message, be it informative or fictional. What digital works do via the Internet is increase all these possibilities and broaden the circle of readers with whom we can exchange impressions and opinions or share pastimes such as fanfiction and other forms of collaborative writing. With digital books this socialisation
is not limited to the before and after stages of reading; rather, they provide a chance to compare notes and comments during reading, simultaneously and spontaneously.
Whether on paper or on a screen, reading helps us learn about the world, about ourselves and about each other. The feeling of belonging to a community of readers is thus an essential factor for encouraging, strengthening and stimulating reading habits; similarly, discussing and com- paring opinions, face-to-face or in the cloud, enriches us as readers and as people and invites us to express ourselves and argue, to be more critical and to gain a deeper understanding of what we read.
READING
Readers in the digital age