| In the final days of the twentieth century many articles appeared in the mainstream press which raised a debate regarding the impact of the World Wide Web: does the WWW represent rupture or continuity? To put it in the vernacular, is it ushering society into a brave new world, or is it simply pouring old wine into a new bottle? This dissertation takes the position that the Web represents something in between rupture and continuity, that it offers a little of both.; In support of that position, I draw upon the theory of remediation developed by Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, which maintains that from the time of the Renaissance through today, when new visual media are introduced, they gain cultural acceptance by paying homage to, rivaling and refashioning older media, while at the same time promising a more immediate experience and unique hypermedia effects. With its storage, retrieval and networking capabilities the Web is, however, more than a visual technology. This suggests the need for a theory of remediation particular to the Web, one which acknowledges its potential to remediate not only visual worlds, but other institutions and environments as well. Inspired by the work of Mark Stefik (Principal Scientist, Information Sciences and Technology Laboratory, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center), I submit that the Web uses immediacy and hypermediacy to refashion (remediate) the library, the marketplace, the community forum, and visual worlds.; In the course of the study, this framework for understanding the potential of the Web is explored from the perspective of a particular case: the Hudson Mohawk Industrial Gateway, a heritage organization headquartered in Troy, New York, whose purpose is to help the region celebrate, preserve and profit from its historical industrial legacy. The rhetorical nature of the Gateway is examined, with an emphasis on the rhetorical situation that prompted its formation and the epideictic discourse it has created for printed materials, museum exhibits, guided tours, and an audio-visual presentation.; The theoretical framework developed in the first two chapters is then applied to the particular case of the Gateway. The study culminates with the design, production, and description of an online prototype for a Hudson Mohawk Industrial Gateway website which remediates the Gateway's previous mediated messages, and at the same time functions as a digital library, a digital marketplace, an online community forum, and a virtual world that supports the Gateway's rhetorical purpose. |
