Making connections
When reading Bolter chapter nine really seemed to draw together so many of the ideas that have been interwoven through the course content. At the heart of the matter, I feel is this question:
in what ways has the reflexive character of technology changed the way we send and receive information?
As Bolter suggests, the writer indeed reflects themselves in the text, and technology allows the text to answer back through the interactive nature of technology where audience and author seamlessly move from one space to another.
Technology (hypertext in particular) has remediated the role of print and experience of print, as it refashions knowledge and experience from within the text itself. The nature of hypertexts is to reveal and expose our thoughts. It breaks down complex ideas in to elemental ideas that can be analyzed in digestible chunks which can in turn be pieced together to build a more complex idea.
One of the things that struck me early on in this course was reading Anita Heitz’s comments in module 2 post 1 https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540w2015/2015/09/28/the-lost-art-of-storytellying/ where she talked about the commodification of text:
“We are far too busy to “waste” our time listening to elaborate stories because “time is money”. I think in present day society we are taught that anything that is written down has more value and that things that are spoken are flawed (Ong, 1982). We are far too busy thinking about other things to listen carefully when others are talking, therefore we need to write things down, especially when we are dealing in a business situation. We don’t trust the oral, and rely on the written. I think this idea has shifted its way down to how we teach and even how we raise our children.”
In acknowledging how we have commodified print culture, Anita also alludes to the fact that we are so busy analyzing the writing, that we rarely take the time to just digest it for what it is- and recognize the author’s intent without responding immediately to it. In this way, we are receiving information differently through text as we would orally.
In Janet Ward’s post in module 2 post 1 https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540w2015/2015/09/27/theuth-vs-thamus-text-as-medicine-or-poison/ she commented on something slightly different. Janet noted:
“Probably the most significant gains of writing versus oral communications is the ability to go beyond rote memorization to critical thinking and analysis. The ability to process knowledge at a higher level enables us to invent, create and originate thought that is distinct and potentially more innovative than that of our predecessors (Ong, 1982).”
This idea certainly supports Ong’s deterministic view that “writing has transformed human consciousness” (Ong, p. 78). While I agree with the notion that writing has allowed for more innovative and distinct thought, I think Ong neglected to look at the oral culture we are seeing in different forms of New Media such as videos and film making- all of which are routed in the oral tradition. One of the post popular forms of music today is rapping, which certainly comes from a deeply embedded history of the oral tradition. It would be remiss to say there is no critical thinking and analysis happening in some very poetic rappers of our time such as the Somalian/Canadian artist K’naan who writes about war and violence. Returning to the question of how does technology change the way we send and receive information, I feel we must acknowledge the that while the mind is the creator of writing, the writing in turn creates the mind. Descartes claimed “I think therefore I am” meaning he was the author of his own thoughts, but he did not live in an age when the thoughts could speak back to him (synchronously or asynchronously) as we do today.
Digital Media allows for a reflexive relationship between author and audience thus blurring the distinction between private and public, written and oral, thought and analysis.
Sources
Ong, Walter. (1982.) Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. London: Methuen.