ABSTRACT
With the development of digital media, the activities of reading and writing, which used to be mediated by pen and paper, typewriters, and printing presses are now increasingly mediated by digital tools like e-readers, smartphone apps, web browsers, word processers, and other digital reading and writing tools. This shift from print-based to digital media has been accompanied by new literacy practices, shaped by the affordances and constraints of digital tools. Printed books also separate us from the people who wrote them and put us in the position of passive recipients of information. In digital media, these design limitations are overcome through three main affordances, namely: hypertextuality; interactivity; and multimediality. These new affordances of digital media have required people to rethink their understanding of reading and writing and redefine their ideas about what a reader is and what a writer is.
