Interactivity and the Invisible: What Counts as Writing in the Age of Web 2.0

• The study investigates how vocabularies, functionalities, and organizing structures of Web 2.0 sites impact writing in those spaces
• The study identified 2,741 English language Web 2.0 web sites; a purposive sample of 29 sites were analyzed
• The author developed a Reflexive Cataloguing Methodology as a means to capture and record changes in web sites over a period of time
• Results suggest we need to pay more attention to the interactivity embedded in and afforded by Web 2.0 applications
• Results also suggest we need to pay more attention to processes that are invisible to the composer

This study asks: what counts as writing in a Web 2.0 environment? How do the vocabularies, functionalities, and organizing structures of Web 2.0 environments impact our understanding of what writing is in these spaces and how that writing is performed? Results suggest that we, as scholars and teachers, need to pay more attention to, first, the interactivity that is embedded in and afforded by Web 2.0 applications and, second, the processes that are invisible to the composer. Successful compositional engagement with Web 2.0 applications requires an evolving interactive set of practices similar to those practiced by gamers, comics, and electronic literature authors and readers. What we learn about these practices has the potential to transform the way we understand writing and the teaching of writing within and outside of a Web 2.0 ecosystem.