This study is about the change of reading style by the introduction of electronic book. In this study, I investigated the change of reading style, focusing on hypertext, the significant characteristics of electronic book, and the change of reader's role. In traditional literary works called classics, an author narrates a story to a reader as if the author knew everything. It is impossible for the reader to participate in the story of a book, because the author's role is beyond the reader's role,. Also, it is taken for granted that a book is read line by line from the first line to the bottom line and page by page from the first page to the last page. Such a linear and hierarchical structure in a traditional book has been emphasized by typography. In traditional reading before hypertext, a reader is allowed to read the result of events that characters choose. In the other words, it is impossible for the reader to navigate events that could happen at the untaken direction that characters do not choose. However, hypertext by electronic book refuses such a linear structure of text. Also, hypertext is beyond the unilateral fashion of traditional reading. Hypertext allows the reader to choose the ongoing story at diverging nodes and enables him to have various reading experiences. That is, it is possible for the reader to have opposite reading experiences while reading an electronic book. If there are some diverging nodes, multiple stories can be constructed beyond our imagination. As the result, various reading styles is created. Likewise, hypertext literature allows the reader to have free choice of the structure of a story. Therefore, by comparison with traditional literature, the reader's role has been reinforced. The reader's role is both a receiver who receives message from the author and a sender who reconstructs message and implants it in text. Interactive communication not only between a computer and a human being but also between a human being and a human being are possible through computer network. Also, interactive transfer of text is possible. Interactive transfer of text means interactive connection of text as a linked network. However, the change of the concept of reading by electronic book is not the change of the intrinsic nature of reading. What is changed is that the concept of reading is extended and that reading style is transformed. Also, electronic book is required to collaborate with traditional book. Hypertext reading is immediate and sensitive, unlike traditional reading. However, in the depth of thinking and perception, hypertext has drawbacks. Electronic book has a high degree of efficiency in terms of the acquisition of knowledge and information, while it has a low degree of efficiency in terms of the effluence of affective and cognitive response by comparison with traditional book.
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