Web Annotation as Conversation and Interruption

Abstract

This article showcases both the conventional and disruptive features of web annotation as media practice. To do so, we orchestrated a series of thematic exchanges about media practice, specifically those associated with openness and politics. We then publicly invited responses to our initial manuscript via the online web annotation platform Hypothes.is. The two thematic conversations inspired an ensemble of public contributors to join us in ongoing discussion for over a month, layering atop our source text over 100 original web annotations, creating a laminated and multi-authored document. Following this shared activity, we reflected upon our experience and the generated content, and authored a complementary synthesis that explores the tenor and tensions of web annotation as a disruptive media practice, as well as web annotation as performative publishing. Alongside public contributors, we worked a cyclical dialectic of process and product, discussing web annotation as disruptive media practice by publicly practicing web annotation as an act of co-created disruption. It is our hope that this experiment-turned-article, part collaboratively authored dialogue and part post-hoc synthesis, models and begins to theorize new and disruptive media practices for research design, peer review, and scholarly communication.