From subtitles to SMS. Eye tracking, texting and Sherlock

As we progress into the digital age, text is experiencing a resurgence and reshaping as blogging, tweeting and phone messaging establish new textual forms and frameworks. At the same time, an intrusive layer of text, obviously added in post, has started to feature on mainstream screen media-from the running subtitles of TV news broadcasts to the creative portrayals of mobile phone texting on film and TV dramas. In this paper, I examine the free-floating text used in BBC series Sherlock (2010-). While commentators laud this series for the novel way it integrates text into its narrative, aesthetic and characterisation, it requires eye tracking to unpack the cognitive implications involved. Through recourse to eye tracking data on image and textual processing, I revisit distinctions between reading and viewing, attraction and distraction, while addressing a range of issues relating to eye bias, media access and multimodal redundancy effects.