According to Marshall McLuhan in 1964, he regarded “the written form” as “[appreciating] the nature of spoken word”, while orality is a “primitive and undeveloped medium” (MacNeil). This might be what happened in the past, but definitely not at present. I believe that one cannot deny that, through the invention of World Wide Web, we get to know more different people’s stories. There are some examples that I would like to share with you before getting into my reflection.
The first example that I have in my mind would definitely be the Facebook Page Humans of New York. Admin of the page has transformed spoken stories of the interviewees, which is a form of orality, into words on the Internet, which can be regarded as a form of literature. Another example I would like to show is a video that Benedict Cumberbatch reading a love letter written during the Second World War. With these examples, I would, therefore, say technology has utterly changed what we anticipated as literature and orality.
Then I begin to wonder why and how technology changed the style of literature, story and storytelling. The prime reason would possible be the happening of Globalization. According to internet source, English is currently the dominating language in the world, with 67 sovereign states entitled it as the official language. Therefore, with no doubt, English language is playing an extremely significant role in our lives, and stories can now be told and made an impact via a single language.
Furthermore, with the help of different social media, like Facebook and Pinterest, along with different tools, like video, soundtracks, both written and oral stories not only can be shared by a click, but also bypassed the publishers. This enables different stories to come into our sight, especially those that the mainstream media tends to ignore. I would especially want to highlight the ‘comment’ function of social media. This function enables readers to directly interact with the writer, sharing their own point of view, but I think this is another way of storytelling, particularly when people share their own experience. This also showed that technological advancement has blurred the division between storytellers and readers.
Another very interesting invention that technology brought us is the hypertexts. Taking this blog entry as an example, you can easily reach Humans of New York and Cumberbatch’s video by moving your mouse over the underlined words, and click them! Another example I would like to draw to support my view is our blogging guideline. Hypertexts in our blog entries are aimed to provide insights and new information to our current knowledge. With different stories written and different hypertexts included by fellow classmates, we can understand the contexts of stories thoroughly through the Internet. We no longer need to flip through pages and search background details in the old, dull library.
To conclude on how technology influenced on literature and story, I would say that the Internet allows people to hear and know stories behind the doors. Before ending this entry, I would need to acknowledge that I haven’t talked about the negative impacts on literature and stories brought by technological advancement, but I am more than happy to discuss them with my fellows!
Countries and Languages – Megalanguages around the World – Nations Online Project. One World Nations Online. Web. 19 Apr 2016
Courtney MacNeil, “Orality.” The Chicago School of Media Theory. Uchicagoedublogs. 2007. Web. 19 Feb. 2013.http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/mediatheory/keywords/orality/
“Humans of New York.” Nov 2010. Facebook.
Letters Live. “’ My dearest one’ Benedict Cumberbatch reads Chris Barker’s letter to Bessie Moore.” Online Video Clip. YouTube. YouTube, 27 Mar 2015. Web. 19 Apr 2016.
Hi Christy!
I absolutely agree that technology (social media) has provided a voice for stories “behind the doors,” as you put it. I especially like your example of Humans of New York; despite its name, it gives exposure to stories from all around the world and of people from all walks of life.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the comment section (in addition to people sharing their own stories) is often overflowing with people extending their help or resources to the person whose story is told.
You mentioned that you haven’t touched on any negative impacts technology may have on stories or literature; I’m wondering what your opinion might be on the notion that people “perfect” their lives (their stories) on social media by withholding negative things about their life in favour of posting idealized things. There was a lot of controversy surrounding “Instagram star” Essena O’Neill’s decision to quit social media because it wasn’t “real life.” Here’s a link http://time.com/4167856/essena-oneill-breaks-silence-on-quitting-social-media/. Although I agree that people tend to glamorize their stories on social media (we can be the best version of ourselves on it), I’m not sure if social media itself is to blame. What are your thoughts on this?
Thanks for the insights!
Victoria
Hi Victoria,
Thanks for your feedback and insights! I completely missed the point that you’ve mentioned about the comment section, so thanks for highlighting this as well! But I would like to take your opinion further as the comment section not only allows people in need receiving aid and resources, but also connects the virtual world of stories to reality. These stories revealed some hidden problems in our community and world, and urged us, the netizens, to consider and resolve these problems by putting pressure on our government (though we have no idea when the government is going to tackle these problems).
On the notion of whether people tend to ‘perfect’ their life on social media by withholding negativity and idealizing positivity, I would say that social media should not bear sole responsibility as conventional mainstream media has too contributed to this social atmosphere. Our impression on what is a good life is still much stereotyped by mainstream media, which thus leads to the trend of boosting the idealized positivity in life. I also believe that we have control over social media as we are the one who decide on what to post on Instagram. Therefore, I too think social media itself should not solely bear the blame.
Cheers!
Dear Christy,
I think you did a great job listing the positive impacts that social media has brought upon us, whether that be the freedom to express how we experience life through an array of platforms or how we can now conveniently communicate our thoughts through advanced technological means.
There is no doubt that social media has revolutionized how we share and perceive stories, especially when interventions by publishing houses are no longer required of us to publish onto the internet. This, in turn, creates an unfiltered stream of run-of-the-mill posts that also runs the risk of inaccuracy and/or biased views. So my question is, do you think telling/sharing stories despite questions of morality and truthfulness, is still worthy for consideration? (I personally still think there is value.)
Let me know what you think!
Cheers,
Sandra
Hi Sandra,
Sorry for replying your comment that soon! Regard to your question on the unfiltered posts with problems inaccuracy and biased view, I would rather think that all the posts on the Internet are biased, and may be slightly inaccurate. We have our own opinions towards information and stories, which implied that there would never be a solely objective point of views. Let’s look into the example of news report (an objective style of story-telling), which we all tend to agree that would be the most objective information. We could still observe the stance of the news reporter through his/her unconscious choices on vocabularies, though they tried to maintain a neutral stance. Therefore, with the unconscious opinions added by the reporters or writers on the Internet, the information we might have come into may be slightly inaccurate and biased.
However, I too believe that story-telling is still worthy despite questions of morality and truthfulness, for this allows us to connect to other cultures in the world. This would be very crucial as we need to observe and respect other cultures under the influence of globalization, where we are much more connected. Stories from minorities too play a very significant role under this circumstance as they may reveal the problems hidden beneath. There is an example I would like share: The Panama Papers (https://panamapapers.icij.org/). I think this example has illustrated that reports from minor journalists could also reveal stories that we never knew and were not supposed to know under the immoral intervention of government and entrepreneurs.
Cheers!
Hi Christy,
I was curious as to why you thought English becoming a dominant language changed storytelling — is it that now the stories have access to more people, or something about the language itself? Are some stories just translations from another’s language, and this itself is a change to the literature? We know that many languages still exist, and they still exist among the digital age, so some stories are still not accessible to everyone. However, would you still say because of the digital age more people are able to learn/write English and tell their vision through it, or that in general stories are more accessible? Curious to hear your further thoughts on this.
Regards,
Sylvia
Hi Sylvia,
Sorry for replying your comment that soon! I would say English, as the world dominating language, has made stories more accessible to people as we all learn English though our mother tongue may not be English. There are definitely stories translated from other languages, but I also realized that literature can differ among different cultures. For instance, the book “Dream of the Red Chamber” would be a very classic literature in Chinese culture which everyone should have read. However, when it is translated into English, I would say the translation has lost the essence of the traditional Chinese version, which would not make the book into a classic literature in English.
I believe with more people being able to communicate in English, general stories written in English can be more accessible. Both conditions are complimentary. With people communicating via a universal language, story-telling in English can be more accessible, especially with the digital advancements. However, for general stories written in other language, I surely doubt whether it would become more accessible even under the impact of the digital age.
Cheers!
Hi Christy!
I really enjoyed reading your post, especially about the impact of commenting on posts or stories that, in themselves, could be their own story. I am utterly intrigued by how much technology has changed how we not only communicate, but also perceive information today – and I wonder if that has changed the way that we think, compared to the past, when people did not have access to the internet? Personally, I think that people will always have bright ideas and stories to share – but I am curious to find out whether, as the way stories are told and distributed rapidly changes, we will still be able to take away from it the same meanings as our parents did?
Let me know what you think!
Warm regards,
Amelia
Hi Amelia!
Thanks for commenting on my blog entry! In response to your first question, I definitely believe that technological advancement changes the way people think when compared to the past. In the past, people tend to believe in the new information they got without questioning the validity. Even if they wanted to verify the authority of any new information, the inefficient flow of information would hinder them to do so. However, with the invention of World Wide Web, people can now have easy access to new information and to its validity, especially on those reported by the mainstream media. We now behold the belief on the notion of “truth may not be what we see”.
When it comes to stories, I believe that there are still brilliant ideas existing, but we may not get the same meaning from stories like our parents do. This maybe due to the difference in our beliefs. We have learnt to think critically in our education system, which directed us to question stories that we read. Furthermore, with no limitation on the flow of information, we might come into new information that our parents never came across. I too believe that we understand stories differently according to the different level of knowledge that we acquired.
Cheers!