Keywords
Keywords (kēˌwərds):
In the introduction to his 1976 book Keywords: a vocabulary of culture and society , Raymond Williams laments the limitations of the standardized mode of the terms which he collects in the volume; the book’s definitions are arranged alphabetically, with suggested cross-referenced terms listed at the end of each entry. Williams notes that these cross-references remind the reader of the multifarious connections between terms; however, he simultaneously expresses reservations about the associations between “keywords” which are lost when the terms are arranged into an alphabetized sequence. He comments, “In writing about a field of meanings I have often wished that some form of presentation could be devised in which it would be clear that the analyses of particular words are intrinsically connected, sometimes on complex ways.” Williams’s words are suggestive of a memex-like structure which would better accommodate the interconnectedness of the defined terms, allowing the reader to explore these shared conceptual connections—and perhaps, ideally, even to permit her to create new associative links between the terms.
While profoundly different in scope and scale from his undertaking, our project takes a cue from Williams by arranging our structure around what we view to be essential concepts and principles in the consideration of the possibilities of transmedia scholarship. The flexibility of Scalar allows us to present the terms which we have selected in an arrangement which which affords the reader and exploration of the associative linkages between the definitions and examples to which Williams alludes. It is our hope that your navigation of the terms we have assembled and the linkages between these keywords and principles will help you generate your own connections.
A word or concept of great significance; A word that acts as the key to a cipher or code.
In the introduction to his 1976 book Keywords: a vocabulary of culture and society , Raymond Williams laments the limitations of the standardized mode of the terms which he collects in the volume; the book’s definitions are arranged alphabetically, with suggested cross-referenced terms listed at the end of each entry. Williams notes that these cross-references remind the reader of the multifarious connections between terms; however, he simultaneously expresses reservations about the associations between “keywords” which are lost when the terms are arranged into an alphabetized sequence. He comments, “In writing about a field of meanings I have often wished that some form of presentation could be devised in which it would be clear that the analyses of particular words are intrinsically connected, sometimes on complex ways.” Williams’s words are suggestive of a memex-like structure which would better accommodate the interconnectedness of the defined terms, allowing the reader to explore these shared conceptual connections—and perhaps, ideally, even to permit her to create new associative links between the terms.
While profoundly different in scope and scale from his undertaking, our project takes a cue from Williams by arranging our structure around what we view to be essential concepts and principles in the consideration of the possibilities of transmedia scholarship. The flexibility of Scalar allows us to present the terms which we have selected in an arrangement which which affords the reader and exploration of the associative linkages between the definitions and examples to which Williams alludes. It is our hope that your navigation of the terms we have assembled and the linkages between these keywords and principles will help you generate your own connections.
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