Electronic Orality in Youth

Jay Makki
DTC 375 w/ Dr. Farman
Feb. 19, 2009
Word Count: 983

Modern history shows that youth have been the main catalysts for change. This is especially true in terms of technology. As new generations move into power they break the social molds of generations past. Recent trends in our electronic culture are suggesting that the youth of today are reaching backwards in time to recreate themes of communication found in pre-literature times. With the advent of new electronic mediums—such as text messaging, email and instant messaging—the youth of our global village are striving to create orality in our electronic mediums.

Orality has always had a way to convey ideas quickly and concisely. While the early beginnings of oral representation through visual means, such as pictographs, could be used to represent objects, they were less effective at transcribing ideas. Later, in Sumer, with the inception of cuneiforms, the ability to document more effectively was quickly on the rise. Over time this idea was reformed, from hieroglyphs, to the Indus script, to what would eventually lead to the Greek alphabet. Written language had arrived and it would change history simply by making it possible.

Language created a way to break free from the barriers presented by preliterate people by giving them memory. Ideas could be easier documented for the use of spreading the message. Eventually orality, and the idea of the pre-historic man, would fall to the wayside to writing. Orality was useful but limited and writing answered those problems.

As technology would eventually improve, the ability to document and deliver content was sped up. When Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press history was made, allowing history to move that much faster.

Martin Luther, when he sent that famed letter to the church, inadvertently created the very first form of ‘viral media’. The concept isn’t hard to grasp when applied to modern electronic culture. The difference is that modern mediums move at instantaneous speeds where in times prior the messages could only move as fast as they could be created. Today, when you wish to spread a message you find important, there is no longer an issue with how fast the media can be created but a matter of how fast you can create the media. Luther was creating ‘viral media’ through a textual relationship to his message. Modern cultures have a faster, oral relationship with spreading our media.

Primary users of media are going to come in the form of youth. Being our digital natives, teenagers, more then anyone, understand the importance of being ‘connected’. When a culture’s children are raised with an abundance of laptops, cell phones and electronic gadgets in their everyday lives, they are going to adapt and put an emphasis on what these ideas mean in multiple facets of their lives.

Textual communication requires more encoding/decoding of ideas through language. While text can be expressive, sometimes to get down to the core of a message requires attention to detail. In a fast paced Western society, where the speed of content delivery is almost as important as the content itself, using pure textual communication can slow this process down. Those who might benefit from using orality in communication are those who don’t have preconceptions about what it means to ‘communicate’ in the first place; namely our youth.

As McLuhan says, “the medium is the message”; so perhaps a rapid fire exchange between two teenagers during class can be meaningful because of the medium being used. Never mind if the phrase “Thanks for asking, I’m in a good mood” is expressive, if it can be summed up with “good thx =)” then the answer to the question is equally valuable in the context it is being asked in. In the near future it is possible that someone noted for having the ‘gift of gab’ could be someone who can effectively text message amongst friends.

When done correctly, orality injected into a medium can transcend textual cognition and punctuate a point instantly. When looking at the modes of communication found in modern media these ‘shortcuts’ being utilized by youth cut down on the amount of textual presence of an idea. The aforementioned mindset focusing on the speed of delivery is ensuring gratification when they want it: now.

Andrew Robinson (2007) suggests that most American and Europeans, “of ordinary literacy must recognize and write around 52 alphabetic signs, and sundry other symbols” (2007: 39). While this statement is certainly agreeable to the common mean of a population, ask any teen and they might be able to identify up to a hundred additional characters compromised of ‘emoticons’ and acronyms that could very well be considered hieroglyphs.

If a texter think something is funny, ‘lol’ sums up ‘that is funny’. If someone is sad, a simple =( pictograph relays that messages. Every year, instant messaging programs incorporate new emoticons into their chat programs and the trend, which would have seemingly slowed down, is still booming. Cellular phones are now becoming equipped with keyboards. Voice chat programs, such as Skype, are beginning to do away with the need to type at all. Once textual media solved the problems of memory in oral cultures, oral media is now doing to solve the problems of speed in textual cultures.



Marshall McLuhan has stated, “The twentieth century, the age of electronic information, instant retrieval and total involvement is a new tribal time.” He further iterates he believes the tribal culture has, “the means of stability far beyond anything possible to a visual or civilized or fragmented world (2005: 59). Regardless of how youth today might have different ideas about media, if McLuhan is correct, then those differences will not mean a thing since it is these same technologies that are bringing them together as one; uniting them as a tribe. Even if older generations fail to understand the significance of this idea, this injection of oral culture into electronic mediums will ultimately bind a new generation of digital natives.

References

Marshall McLuhan (2005). Counterrevolution in cultural theory. In George Genosko (Ed) Critical Evaluations in Cultural Theory. 2005 Published by 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY: Routledge

Robinson, Andrew (2007). The Origins of Writing. In David Crowley & Paul Heyer (Ed), Communication in History (p.36-42). Boston, MA: Pearson