Usability Views Article Details  home | timeline | recent | popular | e-reports | userati | books | about  Digital Text Cycles: From Medieval Manuscripts to Modern Markup (09 Mar 2005) The paper argues that the current implementation of digital publishing is a minor step in a long development of digital text cycles. Rather than being a revolution, the digital transformation of text is an evolutionary process heavily influenced by social and cultural factors. The paper introduces the concept of a "text cycle". An examination of basic features of paper-based text cycles and features of digital text cycles demonstrates that digital technology has a potential for change that far exceeds that of the "Gutenberg revolution". However, by applying a historical perspective, I will try to show how the deep and enduring cultural heritage of print is impeding the radical potential of digital texts. Article URL: http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/Articles/v06/i01/Hillesund/ Read 73 more articles from Journal of Digital Information sorted by date, popularity, or title. Next Article: Easy-peasy PHP     This site is a labour of love built by Chris McEvoy