The Introduction

"Text can be viewed as a thing--a sound and sturdy object--or a fluid poured into the containers of a page or screen. Text can be solid or liquid, body or blood."

The introduction to the text section of Lupton's book grabbed and held my attention. This analogy of text as living, as a body or blood was very interesting to me. I would even go as far as to say that text functions as both in digital media.

The text is the substance of anything that you read online. It is the information that causes us to be looking on the Internet in the first place. Text provides us with new ideas and answers. It truly is and always has been (since the printing press became popular) the mode by which we most easily communicate, share, introduce and steal ideas. Text is a body.

But how we use text, how we design it is what fulfills the second half of the analogy. With the tools we have today we can mold text into any form or shape with as much or as little fluidity as we see fit. We can make reading something fun and interactive by forcing the readers eye to follow the text through any pattern or allow our word to have multiple interpretations by setting multiple areas of entry and exit from the text. That is the blood that keeps the body worth maintaining and reading.

You could even say that my post has a certain fluidity with its short paragraphs. It seems less duanting or easier (quicker) to read than a large block of text.