Digital Scholarship and Interactivity: A Study of Commenting Features in Networked Books

Abstract

Digital scholarly publishing is moving toward the use of commenting features, which allows readers to contribute to the knowledge production of the publication and establishes a community of readers within a digital text. In this article, I use theories of interactivity in order to articulate some of the potentials as well as challenges that are inherent in using commenting features within digital scholarship. In using interactivity as the main theory through which scholars understand their decisions about commenting functions, this article argues, digital scholars will better be able to frame the interactions that can occur among readers and the author within the online scholarship.