We had visuals well before any form of literacy or orality existed. Today, we look at multiliteracies as something new. That is, the combination of text, hypertext, with visual imagery such as still pictures and videos. “We are living through a period of dramatic global change, as new business and management theories and practices emerge across the developed world” (London, 3). While true, technology has merely enabled or perhaps advanced what we already do. In other words, we’ve always combined “multiliteracy” into our communications. We simply never had the opportunity to record, playback and share our ideas until technology catches up with us.
So these terms that we like to throw around like hypertext, multiliteracies, digital literacy are examples of technology fulfilling a niche, a human desire that existed well before the technology itself. Similar to the music we wanted to express was always within us, but we needed musical instruments to bring those sounds to life. We’ve always needed an airplane, but it would take many thousands of years before we could assemble the technology to actually fly.
Dobson states that “Roughly concurrent with the public uptake of hypermedia and the Internet was the rise of computer-mediated communication” (Dobson, 9). I’d like to extend that idea further by saying that we were already hyperlinkng and adding hypermedia to our literacy well before the computer was even conceived. When the codex was invented, it enabled the ability to interlink and reference articles and pages by a numbering and citation system. When the printing press was invented, shortly after people were adding graphics to it. Following that, a metal / copper etching technique was perfected that allowed images of much greater detail to be published along with text.
Interesting but un-related note … I visited a museum with a printing press and learned that this metal etching technique would later transfer to etch circuit boards. Its the same basic technique where ink protects the metal from being eaten by the acid. But in the case of the printing press, the goal is to have raised surfaces for the purpose of holding ink and printing pictures. In the case of a circuit board, the goal is to eat away the exposed copper leaving behind the circuitry. Fascinating!
Attached is a pic of copper etched plates used to print images from a printing press.
Dobson T. & Willinsky J. (2009), Digital Literacy
New London Group. A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies:Designing Social Futures
Hello Daniel.
Your story reminded me of a tour of a print shop that I took and sparked an idea in my head. This print shop had a number of presses that artists could rent and use for a period. We were introduced to lithography, mezzotint, etching, and other techniques that require a press. A couple of the artists that introduced us to their equipment mentioned Rembrandt and how their technique was basically the same as he used in the 1600’s. I realize that certain techniques may survive long after they are phased out because of art and the romantic desire to preserve and continue something old. I have argued elsewhere that books will never die for this same reason.
I think Dobson points out an interesting distinction between word processing. Word processing was originally designed to put words on paper. It was still situated in the written, tangible word that we had grown accustomed to throughout the centuries. Hypermedia changed all that because “for the essence of highly networked documents with multiple pathways lies as much in their linking structures as it does in their content” (Dobson and Willinsky, 5). The printed word is all around us, but we can, and do, operate in a richly printed, non-printed world as well. I have submitted all assignments in my MET program without printing a single document. I haven’t taken a single book from the library and have accessed all the scholarship I have referenced from online databases and journals. I appreciate that you hyperlinked the Dobson article so that I didn’t have to seek it out again.
Furthermore, I think this constantly increasing immersion and reliance on digital media shows that Dobson, Willinsky, and a host of others, are correct in advocating for increased literacy in areas that a short time ago did not exist but show no signs of going away.
Thank you for the post.