Abstract

A great deal of thought has been given to the effects of information technology on reading, books and printed material. Its impact on writing, the production of texts, which is, however, the counterpart of reading, has not aroused the same interest. It is true that witnesses to the act of creation are less familiar objects than books or newspapers: in spite of the passion of the media and the educated public for writers’ manuscripts, these remain predominantly the prerogative of researchers and are still rarely taken out of libraries and archive collections. In extremely literate Western societies, reading is an activity practised by large sectors of the population. The same cannot be said about writing as an active producer of texts, for this encompasses a much more limited group of professionals, and is thought, more or less, to require a special gift in its literary form. Written production is rather the hidden face of McLuhan's Gutenberg galaxy, and the commercial businesses which manufacture and distribute writing in its printed form are better known to the public than the mysterious secrets of creation.