contemplating digital orality

Happy New Year, All!

Following my October 24th post of a proposal to present at the ATTW conference, I recently got word that it was accepted. I am certainly going to accept the offer, and I’m thoroughly excited for the opportunity to put out to the academic community this concept (Simulating Synchronicity in the Online Classroom Through Embedded Audio-Visual Discussions), which is a foundational portion of my dissertation research.

While the elation of ATTW acceptance has not yet cleared, I am now diving into creating a proposal to present in June at the Media Ecology Association conference. This year it is being held at St Louis University (yes, I will be in awe, basking and wallowing in the Ong archives, at every open moment). I think this is a wise venue in which to discuss my ideas on digital orality with the academe community.

Continuing the conversation on Residually Cyclical Styles (the cyclical nature of orality and literacy), I realize the next (or most recent) cycle.
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Heim, Michael. 1999 (orig. 1987). “The Theory of Transformative Technologies.” Electric Language, 2nd edition. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Ong, Walter. 1982. “Some Theorems.” Orality and Literacy. New York: Routledge.

Here are a couple articles/chapters and the questions I was asked related to them: Read the rest of this entry »

Ong also discusses that a characteristic of orally-based thought and expression is that it is, what he deems, agonistically toned. Specifically, he discuses that in oral cultures, each narrative and other piece of information is with the knower. This is to say, there is little way to decipher any difference between the known and the knower. Therefore, it is not until the advent of the chirographic culture that this situation changed. “[Writing] separates the knower from the known.” (43).

While this point is accurate, digital orality replaces that connection between knower and known. In other words, writing takes a knower’s knowledge and makes it an abstract, attainable, knowable by anyone. This general concept can still be true; however, beyond the printed text, digital orality allows an individual to still be the originator, the knower, the one to whom listeners turn having sought him/her out. It is then possible for that listener to become the knower, too.

Another characteristic of primary orality that Ong discusses is that it is close to the human lifeworld. This is to say that since they have no real way to structure information that can stand on it’s own, somewhat separated from human experience, “… oral cultures must conceptualize and verbalize all their knowledge with more or less close reference to the human lifeworld. …. Oral cultures know few statistics or facts divorced from human or quasi-human activity. … An oral culture likewise has nothing corresponding to how-to-do-it manuals for the trades…” (Orality and Literacy, 42-43).

Clearly, the points Ong makes here represent many advantages of chirographic and electronic culture. Read the rest of this entry »