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Tom M
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Sports & Recreation > Football > Steelers: The Greatest Hypertext Ever?

  Steelers: The Greatest Hypertext Ever?

Our thumb is no longer lonely. We have made it to the top but what is next for our beloved Steelers? The Steelers championship season could be compared to a hypertext narrative. The team had the chance to choose where to go and what they wanted to do. The plot also corresponds to their past choices. For if the team had not won in the playoffs then it would have gone down a different path. Much like in the story we looked at in class on Monday, Trip. In Trip the reader can choose where they want to travel to and then there are travel excerpts that are given from that part of the country. This is true to of the Steelers season, had they lost in the playoffs then a different path than the Super Bowl would have been presented. It would have been off season training a week earlier. But their victory resulted in a change in their narratives plot progression, much like in a hypertext narrative. I feel that each individual game could be called a lexia. How would a game be the equivalent of a lexia? It is quite simple actually. The game represents a single moment in the teams overall season much like a lexia represents a single story in the overall narrative. The season has a plot and a central idea much like most hypertexts. The outer plot of Trip is that of a road trip across America. However, there are many individual plots that unfold during the trip that are still based around the theme of a trip. This is also true of the Steelers season. The main plot is that of winning the Super Bowl. There were many obstacles and subplots that occurred however during the way. Each of these could be a lexia. Take Big Bens injuries during the first quarter and middle of the season. These are highly relevant to the overall plot but they each represent their own idea. They have characters and actions and are mini plots among the whole. Also the season progresses much like a hypertext novel. In many hypertext novels the lexias are liked by something on the last slide but there is not always a direct connection. There is never a football game broadcast that does not look back to the last game that the team played and either show what needs to be changed of what needs to be kept up to ensure a victory. Also in some hypertexts there is a slight gap in between the two lexias. Take Trip for instance, there are assumed plot progressions. If say you are in California and you chose to head north, well in one slide there could be a little story from California followed by a random tale and then the next lexia will be from Oregon. There is not very much description of the travel it is just assumed since you were going north that you would end up in Oregon. There is a gap of sorts in the narrative. This is true of the Steelers season as well. Between most games you never hear of what the team is doing in the time between games. You don’t heard for their travel times or stories of the weeks practices. There is a lot of preparation that teams do for each game that goes unnoticed. This is skipped much like the travel time in Trip, it is important to the overall product but it is not presented in the hypertext, it seems to be just assumed. It is in these ways that I can make a comparison between the Steelers season and a hypertext narrative.


posted on Feb 7, 2008 10:15 AM ()

Comments:

I love this idea, and the analogy to "Trip" is great. I guess my question would be what are the tensions in this idea? (That's my job; I have to say that). The football season has a forward momentum; the team is always heading toward a single conclusion: the Super Bowl. We as viewers can't link back and forth at different points; we can only keep going forward. Unless you count recordings, of course, which do give us the ability to move back and forth at different points.

But I'm interested in this idea, even the basic assumptions of it, which you could say more about: basically, how is it that the "Steelers season" is a TEXT, let alone a hypertext narrative?
comment by profjulip on Feb 8, 2008 5:40 AM ()

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