Cybertextuality is any theory of text, and of mental and physical functions associated with text, that is based on Norbert Wiener’s cybernetics, which theorizes any utterance (whether by human, animal, or machine) as being governed by bidirectional controls, consisting of both a sender’s message and a receiver’s feedback. A “hand-shake” mechanism with reader-receivers enables an author-sender to revise and re-transmit a noise-obscured or otherwise faulty message before moving on to another utterance. For example, email systems today use a cryptographic hash function or a lesser checksum, attached to each byte-packet, whose calculation at the point of receipt of the message will show whether any part of the message has been lost or damaged and so whether a replacement packet should be requested from the sender. Digital data-transfer is transparent and simple, and biological subjects are...
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Citation: Lancashire, Ian. "Cybertextuality". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 16 January 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=5770, accessed 09 June 2026.]
