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There is no text that is not parallel. That is to say, there is no text that does not admit context, depend upon context, or become subject to recontextualization. Therefore, there is no text that cannot be made more meaningful through the addition (con-catenation with) of or juxtaposition with some other -text. An author may have an expectation of shared experience with the text’s audience — in other words, implicit context — but the work of connecting context with text is always the reader’s own: the reader must recognize parallels, determine their nature, project intent or assume accident, assign meaning, and refactor their own mental model. A text is not a record of meaning but a set of constraints that restrict possible projected meanings (and, an inattentive reader may project internally inconsistent meanings as well). The work of meaning-making remains personal and internal.
Hyper-text (what is now called transliterature) is different. Visible connection (both transclusion and transpointers) makes lines of flight explicit: context (whether intended by the author or accreted by waves of critics, scholars, and provocateurs) is connected, documented, and its relation categorized and color-coded. Detournment and commentary stands equal in status to an original text. Where the web supports only links-as-navigation, translit centers links-as-association.
Software-mediated communal meaning-making can be dangerous when it fails to implicitly acknowledge the universe of context. After the Boston Marathon bombing, redditors…
