Landow’s Hypertext 2.0, also primarily concerned with electronic hypertext, provides some intriguing statements about the political nature of technologies and the ways in which they are used in educational settings. Stating that "electronic computing has obvious political implications” (279), Landow broadens his discussion from hypertext to all electronic media to ponder their democratizing potential. Concluding that hypertext systems are “antihierarchical and democratic in several ways,” (281), Landow asks us to acknowledge how new media often do not take as long to be accepted by the dominant culture as they once did. He surmises that “the transition from print to electronic hypertext, if it comes, will therefore take far less time than did earlier transitions” (289). C-MOC also has democratizing potential in that it brings into the mainstream a mechanics of writing that has been, for some time, associated solely with disability and “preliteracy.”
In commenting on hypertext, Johndan Johnson-Eilola writes in Nostalgic Angels that the technology “affords change but also encourages nostalgia” (22). He argues that we are not “completely free to construct hypertext according to our own whims nor completely under the sway of the technical system” (37). In investigating computer-mediated oral composing, researchers need to acknowledge that the technology will always reference the traditional practice of oral composition and remediating print through speech because of the programs’ design. We also have the freedom as compositionists to create instructional practices for C-MOC that are specific to the medium rather than ones that are tied solely to dictation or print writing. This next section will more specifically explore C-MOC’s mediation through the experiences of three undergraduate student writers.