Schooling, Technology, and Democracy Mouthpiece

Schooling, Technology, And Democracy

Mouthpiece of the Media

"Literacy and Orality" in Our Times, Walter J. Ong's treatise on the dissonance and assonance of oral tradition and that of writing, compares and contrasts these two forms of communication that are the most salient in today's culture. This work begins by briefly defining each of the fundamental ideas which comprise written and verbal communication, and initially alludes to the fact that present American culture is highly literate and actually has a fair amount of disdain for oral tradition as being less intellectual. The author, however, is quick to point out the inherent artificialities which written communication is based upon, despite readily acknowledging the fact that it is responsible for several fundamental thought processes of upper level reasoning. Yet this notion alone does not belie the fact that writing is still completely contrived primarily due to the fact that it does not occur in "real time," in much the way that language does.

In fact, the spontaneity and instant accessibility of speech is regarded as one of its foremost virtues in "Literacy and Orality in Our Times." Whereas written communication is based upon a series of advanced projections about what information audiences need, oral communication is more expedient in the sense that its connections and germane information can always be inquired about. This notion leads the author into stratifying the various types of orality, the first of which is quintessential and is not based upon written works at all, and the second of which is largely in response to written communication. The treatise ends with several examples illustrating each of these two points, and with the author passing a value judgment that legitimizes both the first form of orality as well as the inherent worth in oral communication in general. However, the main argument of this paper is to stratify oral communication from the written.

Marshall McLuhan is a maunderer. Relatively devoid of garrulous asides, McLuhan's interview with Playboy Magazine reveals his loquaciousness is only matched by his insight into the myriad effects of media both past and present, which he chronicles to the end of explaining the relevance of the latter. After a lengthy two pages of background information in which McLuhan's choicest quotes, biography, and literary career are well documented, the question and answer session with Playboy's Christopher Ricks begins with McLuhan maundering, and explaining why such a circuitous rout is essential to his work as a media specialist. The explanation of his decidedly protean approach segues into the primary effect of the media and the instant-access of information age during which the interview was constructed, in which the Toronto professor elaborates on the fact that people are essentially unaware -- and consequently, subjugated -- to the effects of the media due to the proclivity of man to only understand phenomena after it has past.