Characteristics Of Oral, Scribal And Typographical Cultures Essay, Research Paper

Discuss the characteristics of

Oral, Scribal and Typographical in the light of

McLuhan and Ong s work

In this essay the paper is to discuss the characteristics of Oral, Scribal and Typographical in the light of McLuhan and Ong s work. To enable the paper to do this effectively the paper will discuss the importance of each, mentioned, styles of communication discussing their strength and weaknesses in comparison to one another. Throughout the Essay the paper will refer to McLuhan and Walter Ong s works. The paper will firstly discuss the Oral culture followed by Scribal culture and finally Typographical culture.

Oral culture

An Oral culture is one that uses communication by word of mouth. Pictures may be used as an addition. Reading and Writing are not involved in the communication process of Oral culture.

Oral transmission needs personal, often (depending on the nature and complexity of the information) prolonged, contact between two or more individuals who have to be physically present at the same time and in the same place .

(A History in Writing, page 14)

With reference to the above quote it is noted that in an Oral culture one of the main downfalls is the distance between communicators. A physical presence is required to pass the information. If a person is absent then the information must then be passed onto them by repeating the action and message. Although this form of communication is immediate to people present it can be a very slow process when information has to be passed over great distance.

In Orality and Literacy Walter Ong believed that in an Oral society knowledge was passed on directly to the specific individual that required such knowledge. For instance a carpenter would pass down such knowledge by form of an apprenticeship. The only problem with this method of communication is that no one can prove that the knowledge they give is there own or prove that someone else s words are theirs. A society, which understands just Oral communication, cannot own knowledge they can only

perform it. There is also no way of preserving knowledge other than mentally storing the ideas, which gives no indication into its authenticity and exactitude.

In regards to authenticity and exactitude Walter Ong had a process for this that he called homeostasis this could also mean Chinese whispers . When, for example, a story is passed down verbally the story will change gradually to blend in with the changes in society.

Scribal culture

A Scribal culture is one that has writing, although, may be not the entire culture would be able to write. The people that could write are seen as a higher class, they would be seen as a man in harmony with the will and purpose of God. These calligraphers were often persons of high social standing such as princes, or statesmen. Having mental ability is seen as an important skill, which is equally important in creating an influential debate through the subject of religious rite and expressiveness.

One advantage that the Scribal culture has over Oral culture is the possible forms of exact multiplication of works. Multiplication can be achieved well by hand, but this takes time, everytime a copy is made almost exactly the same amount of time, effort and skill must be invested just like when the text is written for the first time.

Typographical culture

Typographical culture is centrally based upon the printed word. This culture is essentially faster than Oral and Scribal when considering space and time. The Typographical culture is removed from dominance if not replaced by the graphic revolution caused by Photography, moving film and broadcasting.

Typography had made the word a commodity. The old communal oral world had split up into privately claimed freeholdings. The drift toward greater individualism had been served well by print’

(Orality and Literacy, page 131)

According to Walter Ong writing had a number of extreme effects on social cultures. The ability of reading and writing produced many changes such as self-consciousness and the power of expression. The social cultures began to think for themselves and make their own opinions. With Oral transmission the society would believe what they heard, generally because they had no idea. When the Scribal culture was born people still believed what they were told, but compared to Oral cultures there were some differences. In a Scribal culture people that could read and write were extremely powerful and so these fortunate people had great control on the actions of the rest of society. Once the Typographical culture was founded it gave great education to everyone and helped everybody make there own decisions by understanding both sides of a story rather than being dominated.

This paper has displayed the major roles in each of the three topics of discussion, Oral, Scribal and Typographical cultures. This paper will now discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each culture relating them to one another.

With Oral communication one of the strongest points is personal communication. This culture is nearest to nature and all the other cultures have adapted from this initial culture. The difference in nature from all the other types of species that can communicate is found in our ability to lie. With this Oral communication can never be guaranteed as 100% correct whether or not the speaker is lying. To make judgement we require the information told to us to be the truth and so with an Oral culture you would tend to believe what has been told to you because you know no difference. In regards to the Scribal culture information is more accessible but again not necessarily the truth. With only certain people being able to read and write such power is given over the fortunate few and so dominance is apparent. The Typographical culture has seen a great step in unleashing information throughout the world and giving the chance for every individual the chance to determine their own personal evaluations. The ability to produce multiple copies of works gives everyone a chance to educate himself or herself on the same exact topic. Although Scribal cultures could copy works it is still different from printing works. Printing is not the same as copying, multiplication is done mechanically and no further alterations are possible. The printing press can neither correct mistakes nor make mistakes. In scribal cultures copyists could make mistakes and apparently did sometimes. With

printing information it can be multiplied in its original form almost indefinitely, whereas text copied by hand could see more and more mistakes being made throughout its multiplication. This is quite similar to the Oral culture, by this the paper means the expression of homeostasis (Walter Ong) or Chinese Whispers as mentioned earlier.

Since the Typographical culture we have seen two new communicational mediums step into the next form of evolution, they are the Electronic culture and the Wired culture. Even though these mediums are much faster they seem to consist of attributes from the other three mediums. Marshall McLuhan was impressed with this electronic culture as he thought Radio, Television and Film was turning the World into a global village. From everything that is classified as an electronic culture McLuhan has classed them into two groups, Hot media and Cold media.

Hot media and cold media were terms invented by Marshall McLuhan to separate two definitive forms of communication. Hot media saw such mediums as Radio and Film being categorised under its grouping because these mediums required minimal participation from an audience. On the other hand, Cold media had such mediums as Television and the Telephone because of their need for much more participation from an audience.

It is the papers conclusion that with these new mediums becoming more popular the other three mediums are becoming lesser relied on. The Scribal culture has been replaced by the typographical culture, of which in turn is being replaced by Electronic and Wired cultures. One of the main reasons for communication is recording, whether for educational or historical purposes. Up until now societies have seen records on paper, paper is seen as a legal requirement for originately and correctness. Paper is becoming less important all the time with increasing demands from electronic records. Once again it seems only a matter of time before paper becomes absolute and the electronic medium takes over, but then what next? One medium that still is important today as it was since the beginning of time is Oral communication. This gives the conclusion that Oral communication is the Primary source of information and although it has been upgraded by secondary mediums throughout the years Oral

communication has still seen the death of its predecessors while progressing strongly on its own and probably till the end of communication.

Total amount of words (excluding references) = 1,431 words