Inventing Non-Discursive Text in Virtual Collaboration Environments

Abstract

Virtual collaborative writing must acknowledge and encourage a range of symbolization practices because textual products simply are likely to be hybrids of words (discursive) and visual images, aural images, haptic images, olfactory images, and even gustatory images (all non-discursive). Though digital technologies are still limited to aural and visual technologies, the authors must theorize collaboration for and within media that are as yet not widely developed or possible. Today’s collaborative environments require more from interfaces if we are to invent texts that become edited images, Web pages, films, and/or animations. This chapter argues that virtual collaborative environments must accommodate the invention of non-traditional, multimodal texts.