Espen Aarseth, "Introduction: Ergodic Literature"

(In Cybertext)

- Cybertexts are not exclusively electronic/digital
- Non-trivial effort required
- "a machine for the production of variety of expression"
- Traditional reader simply does not have the same degree of influence
- Problematic conflation of fictional worlds and the mediated representation of that world in existing literary theory
- Struggle for (narrative) control
- Games actually are labyrinths and worlds, rather than representations
- Difference and overlap between games and narrative
- Cybertexts as synthetic, composite
- Unicursal vs multicursal labyrinths
- Metaphoric labyrinth (novel) vs actual labyrinth (game/cybertext)
- Digital database facilitates ergodic texts
- Critical of both existing literary theory approaches to digital media, and of radical techno-utopian approaches
- Whether or not cybertexts are "literature" is irrelevant, they should not be "colonized" by literary theory
- What is the actual difference, if any, between paper and computer texts? (We should not assume there is one)
- New media is only important insofar as it can tell us about human communication and culture
- "existing literary theory is incomplete (but not irrelevant)" - needs to be expanded
- "a perspective on all forms of textuality"
- Pluralist, not essentialist perspective on computer technology
- Cybernetic information feedback loop (key feature)
- Text vs reading/interpretation (understand the relationship between)
- Text exists between operator, verbal sign and medium (similar to Altman's pragmatic/semantic/syntactic model?)
- Text as machine with different parts, users
- Overlooked importance of the medium
- "redefine literature by expanding our notion of it" and literary aesthetics in turn