Three ages of Media

Intelligible Abstract

General

Sensible

Specific

SUN

MON

Concrete

TUE

WED

THU

FRI

SAT

SUN

d
Rea

Rest
invention

arrangement

style

delivery

Presence of the Word

Walter Ong
Oral/Aural
Print/literacy
Electronic

ORAL/AURAL
Sensoriumwhich sense is used

As far as one can hear/project voice

Interior to interior
Voice

to ear

Time/space boundsound is in time

Learning

is an event not transfer of

information

Communal/tribal
Entire

community gathers to learn

Knowledgememory
storage/recollection
Knowledge is memory

The one who remembers most is wisest

Rhetorical

education devoted to memory

Literature, history,

Knowledge is connected to body, person

Place to find knowledge is personJesus?

Knowledge is communicated in

memorable forms

Speakers/teachers use forms

so hearers can store/recollect

Oral culture uses forms to remember

Narrativedrama,
sentences,
images

narrated story, poems,

Limits of oral communication

Clocksound takes time
Sound--interprets
Spaceonly as far as one can hear

Opportunities in oral
communication
Learning is an event involving at least two,

usually a crowd

Where two or three are gathered in my name

Learning includes the whole person

emotions, intellect, body

Learning involves open hand in the agora

Intellectualsclosed fist of logic

Literarytwo eras
Papyrus, vellum

Book is worth the life of person who spent

time putting it down--Columba

Moveable type

Book is quickly printed, Reformation

Memory

aides annoying

Move to make learning pure denotation

PRINT/LITERACY
Sensorium

Exterior to exteriorsubject/object
Eye

to page

Time
Time

vanishes, if you have book and

understand language, you can read it and be
half-ways present to authorreading along
Individualsolitary, communing with the ages
Communitynot in presence, but over all
time and space

Alphabet captures sound-ideas

Narrative takes place in time
reading does not in same way
Page breaks time constraints
Eric HavelockPreface to Plato
Could talk about courage without telling story of
Achilles
Abstractions possiblestructure was intellectual
outline, objectify a thing or idea and teach about it

Knowledge
On the page
Something to be found in library
Moves from person to page
Gets this info down so that when person

dies, we will have stories

Breaks limits of time and space
Creates individuals who learn in silence
Communicate with all ages--library
Thought goes silent

Communication
Discourse is about something, not to

someoneletters are different, we read

them over and over again
Sentences content without shape
because you can look back
Book reverenced
Writingone person to whom?
Audience is diffuse in time and space

Limits: Presence
Time/space
No longer important
Writer is one with power
Plato says it always says
the same things,
dialogue gone
We change so the book
changes

Electronic
Sensorium
increases
Hearing important
againseeing also

Time back/space not

Can be present anywhere, but cant affect
what you see--website
Shallowwe become surface, only first
names?
Multi-tasking?
Fast changingtexting, aural, blogging,
Lasts foreverso be careful

Knowledge
No need to memorize anything
Searchable databases
Books different, archival?
Can find like minds around the world

Can create communities of people from

around the world, no longer solitary

Communication
Imagecant just hear, also see
Today we have to see
Videos, you are there

Have to hearsound track creates

meaning, cant reverse

Electronic takes precedence

SMS, more important than

in front of you

Twitter,
person

Electronic Communication
both oral and print
What is remembered?

Narrative, Image very important

Show

story of person affected by new law

Getting the narrative laid down

Anecdotedemonstrates what the effect

of law will be

Limits
Equipment to send out the info?
Anomie? I lose sense of physical neighbor
Knowledge out there, not in here
Can we be human without memory

Herbert Hoover/Edgar Hoover

Becomes mythicrecedes in past
First

World War
Kennedy assassination? Mythic, Camelot

Implications for Church service

Mostly oraltime and space

Gather group to hear-texts, sermon, choir

Music to hear
Music to singneed books
Liturgysing, most people knew by memory

Print

Place of reading? What does it do to body of people

Reading lesson breaks communion, creates individuals

Electronicsee on screenlook up, not in book,

some readingmore communal

Church is an event in time

The sermon is an event
The sermon moves and

informs
Like a concert, it needs
to be heard in
community