In the opening to their most recent specially-edited edition of Computers and Composition (Jan 2010), Michael Day, Randall McClure, and Mike Palmquist call for a new understanding of Web 2.0 and the Web 2.0 Movement. This vision, which they name Composition 2.0, realizes Web 2.0 as it has had drastic effects on the composition process, collaboration within composition, and participatory writing. Embracing hypertext composition for its advances in online collaboration, scholarship both in and beyond this edition have explored the influence collaboration has taken on the writer; however, very little if anything has been done to examine the influence Web 2.0 and collaborative computer-mediated composition has taken in blurring the lines between authorship and readership. Johndan Johnson-Eilola, in his groundbreaking work Nostalgic Angels, supports a deconstructionist view of hypertext composition. Using the foundations build by his study, a social understanding of hypertext composition begins to realize the internet as an actualized deconstruction of society in which borders are easily broken and the rules which govern its composition are continually being renewed and altered by even the most unassuming participant. From these foundations a stronger understanding of hypertext authorship can be understood as the product of collaborative communities rather than the product of an individual who can be constantly and limitlessly censored.
This paper will argue that a collaborative view of hypertext composition reveals new roles for traditionally defined players such as writer and reader, roles which easily become obfuscated and create social space where authorship becomes the product of collaboration.
As such, this paper will suggest new ways of viewing online composition. As influenced by Johnson-Eilola, it will suggest a strongly social view of online collaborative efforts such as blogs and wikis. It will begin with a brief introduction on current pessimism in hypertext studies and then suggest a social view of computer-mediated composition. This social view, as well as seeing an important and unmistakable obfuscation of author and reader, will open up discussion for potential ways in which Web 2.0 (or Composition 2.0) has pulled apart the writing process and allowed for writing in ways never before imagined.
Furthermore, it will be of benefit to those interested in the field of computers and composition, especially to scholars who are working to understand the impact of social networking sites and online collaborative efforts on composition. It will also be of interest to individuals who are interested in the impact continued social studies of the internet have on composition in general and those who either agree or disagree with the statement that the internet has changed permanently altered the way writing is done in communities.
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