Pennings, A.J. (2026, June 06) Remediation and Spreadsheet Logic: Meaning and Certainty Through Hypermediacy.apennings.com https://apennings.com/technologies-of-meaning/remediation-and-spreadsheet-logic-meaning-and-certainty-through-hypermediacy/

Introduction

This post continues my examination of the capabilities of spreadsheet logic and its impact on modern society and its organizations. I do not ask what mistakes it makes, although that would be a valid concern.[1] It asks how spreadsheets perform productivity in a way that produces coherence and certainty in a messy world?

Remediation is “the formal logic by which new media refashion prior media forms.”[2] Bolter and Grusin argue that part of that logic is hypermediacy, which foregrounds mediation. Multiple windows, dashboards, menus, hyperlinks, notifications, and interfaces keep the user constantly aware of the media environment. In what ways does hypermediacy provide new ways to access and represent reality? How does it help organize and “fix” meaning? Given their argument for hypermediacy, how does the spreadsheet combine various media? And what kind of authenticity or certainty does it create through its operational capacities?

These questions attempt to get to the heart of why Spreadsheet Logic can be understood as an extension of remediation rather than merely another example of it. Bolter and Grusin (2000) often present hypermediacy as the opposite of transparent immediacy. If transparent immediacy seeks to erase the medium and create the illusion of direct access to reality, hypermediacy foregrounds mediation by multiplying representations. Yet hypermediacy is not simply a celebration of complexity. It is also a strategy for producing a different kind of knowledge and certainty.

The key insight is that hypermediacy seeks to address the limitations of any single representation by surrounding it and connecting it to other representations.

Hypermediacy as Epistemological Compensation

Bolter and Grusin argue that hypermediacy offers access to reality through the accumulation of various remediated technologies. A single photograph provides one perspective. A website provides images, text, video, hyperlinks, maps, dashboards, and interactive elements. The assumption is that reality is too complex to be adequately represented by a single medium, so media is “healed” through multiple perspectives.

Hypermediacy, therefore, seeks authenticity through multiplicity. The logic becomes “If one representation is insufficient, then many representations together will provide a richer and more reliable understanding.” A financial news channel like CNBC does not merely show gold and stock prices. It presents an array of representations, including the immediate transparency of the anchors and guests, some of whom are remote and may be shown in a split-screen. Live programming ties the viewer into a stream of continuous media, often splitting the screen into windows of indexical information gathered from various data sources. Reality appears more accessible because it is represented from multiple logics and angles simultaneously.

Hypermediacy thus provides a new epistemology. Truth emerges not from a single window but from the coordination of many windows.

Hypermediacy and the Organization of Meaning

Meaning-making is where Stuart Hall becomes relevant. If meaning is inherently unstable and subject to multiple interpretations, hypermediacy can be viewed as an attempt to manage that instability through complexity. Multiple representations do not eliminate ambiguity. However, they can constrain it. For example, a news article may be accompanied by photographs, charts, maps, timelines, and expert commentary to solidify the intended meaning.

Together these elements encourage particular interpretations while discouraging others. Meaning becomes organized through the relationship among representations. Hypermediacy, therefore, performs a subtle form of meaning stabilization. It does not completely fix meaning. But it narrows the range of plausible interpretations.
The user encounters not one representation but an entire grid system of mutually reinforcing representations.

The Spreadsheet as Hypermediated Environment

The spreadsheet may be one of the purest examples of hypermediacy ever created. Consider what appears on a typical spreadsheet screen:

text labels,
numerical values,
tables,
formulas,
charts,
pivot tables,
color coding,
comments,
dashboards,
external data feeds,
worksheets,
macros.

Each element represents reality differently. A sales figure appears as a number. A trend appears as a chart. A calculation appears as a formula. A category appears as a label. A relationship appears as a cell reference. The spreadsheet, therefore, combines multiple media forms within a single operational environment.

From Bolter and Grusin’s perspective, the spreadsheet is a massive act of remediation.

The Spreadsheet as a Convergence Medium

Identification of the spreadsheet’s five remediated forms makes this even clearer. The spreadsheet combines:

Writing – Text defines list items and labels that identify categories and concepts.

Lists – Sequential records, organize information.
Tables – Rows and columns create relational structures.
Cells – Discrete addressable units isolate meaning.
Formulas – Logical and mathematical operations establish relationships and return structured results.

Each of these existed long before computers. The spreadsheet refashions them into a unified computational medium. The spreadsheet is therefore not one medium. It is a convergence medium that incorporates multiple historical systems of representation.

Why the Spreadsheet Creates Stronger Certainty

However, the spreadsheet introduces something that hypermediacy alone does not explain. The various representations are not merely displayed together, although that often supplies a strong visual understanding. They are computationally linked. A change in one cell automatically updates formulas, charts, dashboards, and reports within a single computer, or through telecommunications synchronization with a network of linked spreadsheets.

The representations reinforce each other dynamically. This recursion creates a powerful sense of certainty. A manager sees a number, a table, a chart, a forecast. All appear consistent. The agreement among representations creates trust.

The user concludes, “The data must be correct because every representation tells the same story.” This summation is an important epistemological shift. Hypermediacy creates confidence through computational consistency and multiplicity of representation.

From Authenticity to Coherence

Bolter and Grusin primarily discuss authenticity in media. Remediation works to provide richer access to reality. The spreadsheet produces something slightly different. Its authority comes from coherence. Users trust spreadsheets not because they directly represent reality but because their internal representations agree with one another.

The spreadsheet creates what might be called computational coherence.
A chart confirms a table. A dashboard confirms a formula. A forecast confirms historical data. The resulting consistency generates organizational confidence. This is not authenticity in the photographic sense. It is authenticity through calculative agreement.

Fixing Meaning Through Structure

Hall would likely note that spreadsheets accomplish something unusual. Instead of persuading users to adopt preferred meanings, spreadsheets embed preferred meanings into technical structures. Categories define what counts as relevant. Tables define relationships. Formulas define causal assumptions. Dashboards define priorities.

The spreadsheet’s hypermediated environment therefore does not merely represent reality. It organizes interpretation. Meaning becomes structured before the user even begins analysis. The spreadsheet narrows interpretive possibilities through architecture.

Hypermediacy Across Time and Space

The significance becomes even greater when viewed through the theoretical gaze of Anthony Giddens and David Harvey. Organizations store information over time. They also operate across global networks, requiring the retrieval of shared systems of data and interpretation.

The spreadsheet’s hypermediated structure provides storage and synchronization. A manager in London and a manager in Singapore can pull up and view the same tables, the same formulas, the same charts, the same categories – even at the same time. Meaning becomes synchronized across distance. The spreadsheet, therefore, transforms hypermediacy into a technology of time-space coordination. Its multiple representations and connections allow actors separated by geography to share a common understanding of organizational reality.

The Authenticity of Spreadsheet Performance

The most important conclusion is that the spreadsheet creates a distinctive form of authenticity. A photograph promises “This is what happened.” A virtual reality system promises, “This is what it feels like.” A spreadsheet promises, “This is how reality is organized.”
Those promises are enormously powerful.

The spreadsheet does not claim direct access to reality. It claims direct access to the relationships that govern reality. Its authenticity derives from three sources:

– Representational multiplicity
– Computational consistency
– Organizational synchronization

Together, they create a new form of certainty. The user was convinced not because the spreadsheet looks realistic in the sense that a photograph reflects a scene. The user is convinced because the spreadsheet’s categories, tables, formulas, charts, and calculations all align to produce a structured, coherent account of reality.

The spreadsheet thus extends Bolter and Grusin‘s hypermediacy beyond representation and into organization. It is a hypermediated environment that not only displays reality through multiple media forms but also fixes, calculates, and performs meaning. In doing so, it becomes a central infrastructure through which modern organizations create certainty in a world characterized by contested meanings, time-space distanciation, and accelerating time-space compression.

Notes

[1] Ray Panko at the University of Hawaii did excellent research on spreadsheet mistakes.
[2] Bolter, Jay David, and Richard Grusin. Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000. They followed up on “probes” by Marshall McLuhan, that the content of any new medium is always an older medium. This means new technologies integrate, repurpose, and older media. McLuhan’s main message was to point to the fundamental change these new forms create in human scale, pace, or pattern. These ideas were primarily expressed in The Mechanical Bride (1951) and Understanding Media (1964).
Prompt(s)

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Not to be considered financial advice. AI is often used, and results are thoroughly interrogated. Links are used for some citations.

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Anthony J. Pennings, PhD is a Professor at the Department of Technology and Society, State University of New York, Korea and a Research Professor for Stony Brook University. He teaches AI and broadband policy. From 2002-2012 he taught digital economics and information systems management at New York University. He also taught in the Digital Media MBA at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas, where he lives when not in Korea.

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Category: books and films, data analytics and meaning, spreadsheet logic, technologies of meaning, technology management
Tags: Bolter and Grusin > double logic of remediation > hypermedia > hypermediacy

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