“Rewriting” Literacy and Consciousness

• 10 years ago
• Posted in:Assignment 1: 3 Posts, Mechanization: before and after, Post 2
• 2
• Author: janet_ward

Although we now take it for granted, writing has had and continues to have a profound effect on our world. Ong (1982) posits, “More than any single convention, writing has transformed human consciousness” (p. 77). Our writing space, the material and visual area in which writing takes place (Bolter, 2001), has taken many shapes throughout the years – clay, papyrus, codex, paper, wax, parchment, and computer screen.   Both Ong and Bolter agree that these technologies of writing are not culturally neutral, and as such have modified the ways in which readers relate to text and have made changes to patterns in literacy.

The creation of the printing press was a remediation of previous print technologies. Bolter uses the term remediation to describe a shift to a newer form of media which takes some characteristics from a previous form, but then refashions it and improves upon its affordances (Bolter, 2001). Copying books by hand was painstaking and time consuming. Handwritten letters were often inconsistent in size and errors in transcription were often made. Due to these limitations, books were obviously not widely available and ideas were spread slowly. The printing press remediated the process by enhancing quantity, quality and distribution which created an immediate and wider literate public. There was more regular spacing and hyphenation, and more consistent grammar and punctuation (Bolter, 2001). Readers were able to more easily interpret the message as intended by the author.

Printing had its own critics who feared that books propagated lies or indoctrinated naïve readers. Prior to the printing press, the Church played an important role in regulating the dissemination of books. Censorship and book burning were not uncommon practice. With the advent of the printing press, the Church no longer had the wherewithal to control the quantity of books available nor the content in them. Consequently, more scientific books were printed which allowed for greater strides and advances in understanding and discoveries (Marker, 1985).

The medium read from – whether it be papyrus, codex, or printed book, does have an effect on the perception of the reader. As in Bolter, “The very materiality of writing binds writing firmly to human practices and therefore to cultural choices…[they] are so intimately related that it is not useful to try to separate them: together they constitute writing as a technology” (Bolter, 2001, 11%).  The printing press and computer have had an effect on our view of previous writing techniques. Text that is carved in stone is regarded with more legitimacy and importance than those that have been hastily typed onto a computer screen. Manuscripts are now regarded as art and the craft of text creation without technology is admired. Printed books alike are thought of as “the most highly valued form or writing” (Bolter, 2001, 3%) and as “an unchanging artifact, a monument to its author and its age” (Bolter, 2001, 4%). With regards to the changing role of author and reader, Bolter surmises that the distance between them has been magnified, and the reader is simply a “visitor in the author’s cathedral” (Bolter, 2001, 4%). Authors were (and generally still are) regarded as knowledgeable and expert in their field; and writing was and is still regarded as a respectable and almost heroic undertaking.

In the current late age of print, Bolter (2001) sustains that the changeability and impermanence that the computer offers during the writing process are valued affordances. As cited in Ong (1982), McLuhan asserts that, with the emergence of print, the fixed point of view placed a greater distance between writer and reader. In contrast, Bolter (2001) maintains that the distance between author and reader is diminished as the reader has the opportunity to also serve the role as author. The collaborative nature of the internet and the computer has the potential to “rewrite” the ways that authors and readers interact, thus enhancing the environment for collective knowledge construction.

In the final analysis, the printing press was nothing more than a medium for promoting widespread literacy – but in doing so, it was a catalyst for change of consciousness (McLuhan, as cited in Ong, 1982). Societies were altered forever and profoundly. The promise of new technologies and hypertext will likely rewrite human consciousness once again, possibly allowing for more intimate and diverse ways of knowing and collaborating (Keep, McLaughlin & Parmar, 1995).

References

Bolter, Jay David. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print [2^nd edition]. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Keep, C., McLaughlin, T., & Parmar, R. (1995). The electronic labyrinth. Retrieved, 22 October 2015, from: http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/elab//elab.html.

Marker, Gary. (1985). Publishing, Printing and the Origins of Intellectual Life in Russia, 1700-1800. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Ong, Walter (1982) Orality and Literacy. New York, NY: Routledge.