The best of both worlds
“Writing on papyrus remediated oral communication by involving the eye as well as the ear and so giving the words a different claim to reality” (Bolter, 2001). And what claim did words make on reality? I would say permanence. Permanence of our thoughts is what motivated us to create records.
But if permanence alone was sufficient why did text continue to evolve from papyrus to scroll, to codex, to print, to hypertext, to social media. If necessity is the mother of invention, then what was the need that fuelled the evolution of text? Was it the desire to share our ideas (i.e., distribution)?
Is the need to share and spread our thoughts part of the human condition?
If so, then text is insufficient. If text was the solution for our desire to share and spread our ideas, why do we still pay for tickets to see concerts, comedy shows, prolific speakers, and sporting events. Wouldn’t we just buy newspapers, magazines and books? There is something that is communicated in live oral performance that cannot be captured in permanent verbal records.
If text continues to evolve, then that would mean that words in isolation do not provide sufficient ‘bandwidth’ to communicate the intricacies of the thoughts of mankind. Perhaps the abstraction of text separates the reader too much from the human world (Ong, 1982). What is missing? What does live performance provide us that text does not?
I would say that it is the nuance of body language and facial expression. While communication may not be 90% body language (Yaffe, 2011), it is generally agreed that body language, facial expression and tone play a very important tone in communication. Society still values the production of thought ‘in the moment’ (i.e., orally).
What strikes me from the readings in this course is how humankind has struggled with the balance between expression of thought and efficiency of distributing those thoughts. If we evolved from orality to literacy to create permanence from our thoughts, then the affordances of modern technology are allowing us to revert back to a more oral culture while still maintaining the benefits of distribution and access to those ideas.
Youtube remediates the hypertext as it combines the expression that comes with the storytelling of oral cultures and the efficiency of storing and distributing information via the Internet developed by literate cultures. Online video provides audiences both the ‘in the moment’ of oral cultures and the permanence provided by text. And while it does not provide the interactivity of a live presenter, it does allow the viewer to pause, rewind, fast-forward and replay (which some may argue would be handy features of many live performances).
Here is a personal example of my thought in practicality: When I wanted to learn what was wrong with my snowblower and how to fix it, I turned to Youtube. Why didn’t I go buy a book on small engine repair? Why didn’t I read the maintenance instructions for the machine? Why didn’t I go to the local repair shop and ask for assistance? I went to Youtube because it seemed to be the most efficient way to get the information I needed. Within seconds after typing ‘Toro snow blower leaking gas’, I had access to oral presentations by (self-promoted experts) of what was wrong and how to correct the issue. I took my iPad out to the garage and re-watched the video, pausing it after each step and performed the diagnostics on the machine. Would I have had the confidence to tackle fixing this issue on my own after having simply read a manual? Probably not. If I had driven to a hardware store to ask a local expert to tell me all the possible things wrong with the snow blower and how to solve them, would I have been able to fix the problem? Probably not.
On demand video swings the pendulum of text’s evolution back from literacy to orality by remediating hypertext to accessible video. In my opinion, it is the combination of the expertise demonstrated orally by the presenter and rapid access to that permanent record, that make online video the next evolution of human expression and combine the best of both worlds.
References:
Bolter, J. D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print. Kindle edition: Routledge.
Ong, W. J. (1982). Orality and Literacy: The technologizing of the word. London: Methuen.
Yaffe, P. (2011). The 7% rule: fact, fiction, or misunderstanding. Ubiquity, October 2011. doi: 10.1145/2043155.2043156
Hi Mike:
Thanks for your thought provoking post.
I came across this website that provided an interesting experiment: http://www.albany.edu/faculty/rpy95/webtext/cyber.htm. The experiment is to experience the text written on the webpage in three different ways: in print technology, audio technology and hypertext on the internet. The point of the experiment is to realize that “the medium is the message” (McLuhan, 1964, p. 1) or that despite the language and message being constant, we engage differently with it depending on the medium. I found that different ideas became important depending on the vehicle – but perhaps that is also attributable to the fact that you are engaging with the material on three different occasions?
As you suggest here, the live performance or video presentation may be perceived as more effective in some ways than is the printed text because you engage with the message in a different way. According to McLuhan (1964), it helps shape our sense of self and our way of interacting with the physical world. Essentially, “self” is remediated through different technologies (Bolter, 2001; McLuhan, 1964; Ong, 1982).
I wonder, as well, if learning preferences play a part in what you suggest here. If you are a visual, tactile learner you might prefer to have a physical performance in order to glean the intended message. Ong (1982) would have dubbed this “secondary orality” and he and McLuhan (1964) would have agreed that some of the qualities of oral civilizations have been restored with the advent of this technology.
Another aspect to your discussion is that of entertainment, or edutainment. Certainly we prefer to be immersed in an environment that provides a stimulation of various senses in a way that is pleasing to the individual. From my experience, learning, is better received through a combination of theatrical events and engaging with text as opposed to silent individual reading. I appreciated your comment, “Perhaps the abstraction of text separates the reader too much from the human world (Ong, 1982).” It seems that adding more humanity to the experience – audio, video and demonstration – brings a sense of belonging and connection that was previously unattainable with text alone.
Bolter, Jay David. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print [2nd edition]. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill. Retrieved from: http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/mcluhan.mediummessage.pdf .
Ong, Walter (1982) Orality and Literacy. New York, NY: Routledge.
Janet,
Thank you for your response. I especially appreciate the wording you use in your concluding sentence about adding “humanity to the experience”. A great way to phrase what I was attempting to describe. Thank you
Thank you for your post – I found myself nodding repeatedly throughout as your points highlighted many important aspects of our society.
You posed an interesting question which could be answered in many different ways from a variety of perspectives. “Is the need to share and spread our thoughts part of the human condition?” I would say yes, absolutely. I believe we are very social creatures. I think of references to solitary confinement as one of the worst forms of punishment that we would enforce on another human being emphasizes this point. As a species, we need social interaction and communication, that is to say the sharing of thoughts and ideas, to keep us connected mentally and emotionally to our fellow human beings.
It seems that the more platforms we are given for sharing our views, the more we feel the need to “share and spread our thoughts”. We see evidence of shared thoughts and experiences as far back as the Neanderthals and cave paintings – stories shown through primitive art. As a species, we continued to develop our arts and literature from there as we evolved, but our need to “share and spread” our ideas has not diminished. I would argue that today, with the development of digital media, it has increased substantially. In oral cultures, stories and moral values were shared through stories and songs, in literate cultures, through written as well as oral stories, songs, artistic works, plays, biblical works and so on. Today, our ability to share our views seems almost unlimited. Written as well as visual “posts” are shared by people of all ages. We are no longer bound to written medium to share our thoughts; we can upload videos of ourselves as well. There is regulation where possible, but all views, both positive and negative, can be shared and spread, even if only briefly until a post or video is removed from a site. Interestingly, we also see, increasingly, what seems to be a need to respond to each thought – a post can go up on a social media site and within an hour can have hundreds, even thousands, of responses. Some of these responses may be well-thought out; others will not be. While in the past, the ability to share and respond to thoughts orally was immediate, the printed permanence required much more time and effort. Today, printed permanence is also immediate which can be both a positive as well as a dangerous thing. Viewpoints that were once limited in their distribution now have an audience of millions, and once a view is posted, it will be in cyberspace forever; we can no longer take back our ideas like we once could.
As you pointed out, online distribution of information through a site like YouTube can be extremely helpful to the general population and can help save us time, money, and frustration. I am a very hands-on person and I am a visual learner. I have great difficulty reading a set of directions, even with step-by-step instructions and some pictures to follow. For example, I recently assembled a set of drawers at my grandmother’s house. At one point, I was so confused that I quite literally could not move forward. My brain could not compute the next set of instructions. Because my grandmother does not have the internet, I was completely stuck and had to wait for my sister to arrive (who is much more skilled in assembly and reading directions that I) to show me how to assemble that particular part of the drawer. In a similar situation, when I was at home and had the internet available to me, I was able to simply search what I was assembling (in this case an inversion table) and through a step-by-step video, I was able to assemble the inversion table without much trouble at all. The ability to access visual and oral instructions made a significant difference, as did the option to rewind and replay as needed, and to work at a pace I was comfortable at, in my ability to complete the task at hand and to feel confidence and success. As you said in your post, the opportunities afforded to us by the ability to access both oral and textual information, as well as video, through the World Wide Web has truly granted us “the best of both worlds”.