Text as transmission = Wittgenstein? (Was: NEW: The 'transmission metaphor' for anchor text)

[Jorn Barger]

I just posted the following metaphor to some WWWeb newsgroups,and I
wonder if it doesn't revive, partly, a discredited theory of
symbolism...?

In article <5umar8$rl$1...@jupiter.mcs.net> on alt.hypertext,
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.site-design, alt.culture.www,
and comp.human-factors, I wrote:
>It occurs to me that a hypertext link is rather like a 'peephole' from
>one page to another... and that one of the major problems on the Web
>is that people make these peepholes too small, or too opaque...
>
>Which is to say, it's only the anchor text (in the broad sense, meaning
>all relevant surrounding text), plus any anchor graphics, that can
>'transmit' the value of the underlying page. So a hotlist of two or
>three-word titles is like a tin sheet with pinholes, whereas a well-
>arranged, concisely-described set of links is more like a stained-glass
>window, with each piece clearly seen, and each gaining extra meaning
>from its neighbors...
>
>Anchor text may go on too long, and too obscurely, which is like frosted
>glass-- translucent.
>
>And somehow the metaphor needs to differentiate text that conveys the
>*value* ("excellent") from text that conveys the *content* ("book review").
>The value might be brightness, and the content color, for example, so
>a purely objective hotlist would be colorful but dim, while a gushing
>one would be bright but murky-colored.
>
>And one can look over a website and ask, "which pages are the brightest,
>and how successfully is that brightness transmitted up to the homepage?"
>
>And also, "what range of colors are represented here, and how many of
>them can be detected on the homepage?"

The optics metaphor suggests that meaning has various components that
can be transmitted via different patterns of words, and in theory
might even be analysed and quantified...

But is this a quality of language that's ever discussed, anywhere?
Wittgenstein, say?