Temporary Text
I would like to take the idea of text in a slightly different direction than Barthes' ideal text. Any document on the Web is part of the overall text that is the Web. Temporary texts are created with each Web session and are comprised of all the nodes and pathways encountered during a session (Software is even available that captures and saves a Web session so it can be used again later, bringing more permanence to the temporary texts.). These temporary texts are the reader's creation of an argument. Therefore, temporary texts are the text itself for that reader. As a reader moves throughout the system, she creates a text as she follows her interests. And because she can literally jump to any node for which she has an address, any node on the Web can be part of any temporary text she creates. If we look at the text as the entity through which the argument is made, we can see the volatility of the text affects the stability of the argument: temporary texts create temporary arguments as well.
The Ideal Text
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