[books are only for reading?]

I'm still mulling over a recent article ("It hasn't yet sunk in, but hippy is no longer chic" in the THES) which seems, once again, to promote "novels" over "digital poetry, hypertext and online novel serialisations" (notice how web work is all clumped together). Although Sara Wajid, the writer of the piece, attempts to illustrate the paradigm shift that is occuring, she does couch it in negative terms, quoting David Crystal's idea of "new Englishes" (bound to upset traditionalists) and describing the academic digital media scene as having a decidedly "negligible impact on the average English literature BA course." If Wajid was immersed in the burgeoning field she would recognise its in an incunabular stage. She would also have mentioned the myriad of courses available at universities in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., etc... (in both English and media departments). Faye Weldon doesn't help either, admitting that she "tried to write in serialisation on the internet but I gave up and found that the book is more than the sum of the parts." Of course a book, or any piece of work-art, is more than the sum of its parts...that's the point; a picture is worth a thousand words after all....(ironic much?). How can a writer such as herself then blatantly and irrationaly dismiss digital literacy? For Weldon, a novel is a treasure purely because "editors, typographers and designers have combined to produce something readers like to read and people respond to the whole context." Really...? And then she concludes with "the blog remains the blog: it shouldn't be taught." How can one not become dispondent when so-called critical thinkers make and then have published uneducated comments such as these? I'm sure people like Josie Fraser who are directly involved with blogging in education would be able to respond more adequately than I. Sue Thomas and Kate Pullinger have already responded to Wajid's article in the letters section of the THES. Coming across this article and then this one later one has just re-affirmed the profound necessity for digitally literate, or transliterate scholars.