Link typology

The role of rhetoric in relation to link typologies is not grounded in the individual relations established between a single link (or even a multiheaded link) between two nodes, but is in fact determined much more substantially by the context provided by an autonomous segment developed across several nodes, and more specfically several links.

A distinction needs to be recognised between the quantity of nodes versus the quantity of links simply because a small number of nodes can produce a significant number of autonomous segments by virtue of a high incidence of linking.

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Units, shots, words

The cinema, like language, has much to say, but, like sign boards, it actually escapes the first articulation. It proceeds by "sentence," like sign boards, but, like verbal language, its sentences are unlimited in number. The difference is that then sentences of verbal language eventually break down into words, whereas, in the cinema, they do not: A film may be segmented into large units ("shots"), but these shots are not reducible (in Jakobson's sense) into small, basic and specific units. (Metz, p. 88.)

Adrian Miles: Hypertext syntagmas: cinematic narration with links A performative hypertext presented by Journal of Digital Information

Autonomous segments

Hypertext, unlike traditional cinema, provides for nodes that can be reused, or reappear, in any particular pattern, and this practice of reuse or repetition is one of the principal methodologies employed in hypertext writing (and reading). This means, obviously, that the autonomous segments that can be formed in hypertext, while falling into many different types, also have the feature of a particular node or even minor series forming a significant part of a completely different autonomous segment.

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See that post with different algorithms in metabole
See the journal French Metablog with today different posts

Context and connections

An important implication, as Metz notes, is that if it is the development or articulation of autonomous segments that are fundamental to narration in cinema, then the meaning that accrues to these segments is highly contextual and not inherent within the connections themselves.

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See that post with different algorithms in metabole
See the journal French Metablog with today different posts

Adrian Miles: Hypertext syntagmas: cinematic narration with links A performative hypertext presented by Journal of Digital Information

Collection of shots

Metz makes a strong argument for recognising that the major narrative units in cinema are not shots and their immediate relations (edits) but the series that are formed through collections of shots. These series, Metz's autonomous segments, form the major narrating blocks within cinema. This would indicate that it is not the content of an individual shot, nor the relation established between two fragments, that provides what might be characterised as minimal narrative units. Hence, if there is no intrinsic order required between parts then any principle of organisation or coherence will apply at a higher level.