ABSTRACT
In the case of textual artifacts, "literacy" is the skill with which a reader engages a writer through the medium of an object, printed or electronic. Nevertheless, many argue that the electronic text will become the primary medium for research activities, for writing and analysis of texts. Although scholars have quickly adopted computers for word processing, new forms of interactive electronic texts pose important questions for the nature of scholarly literature in the social sciences. Electronic texts are more kinetic because they can be changed, as a comparison of word processing and typing makes evident. The temporal order of printed texts is mediated by spatial factors, such as the need to turn pages and the graphic order of font and page layout. The meaning of a text is less a matter of spatial order, however, than of affect, either the affective order of the text or the affective intention of the reader.
