Secondary Orality and a Thesis-ish statement

So we're about to say "Goodbye" to Mr. Ong. Been fun.

I left the last post mentioning Ong's idea of what he called the "secondary orality." In a sense, Ong is directly addressing the onset of the digital humanities which, in 1982, were just beginning to take form with groups like Project Gutenberg.

Ong's argument is that the new orality (using telephones, radio, email, and some computer systems at the time) is similar, but still different, to the primary oral cultures. He says that it brings back the sense of the group and of community that writing had no part of. We are now turned toward each other, having discourse with other human beings, as opposed to having our heads buried in unanswerable text. The reason for this, however, is because we have already seen the inside of ourselves. Therein lies the difference: the secondary orality is just as introspective as literary culture, because now we must examine ourselves in the context of everyone else, not just through dead words on a page.

Ong suggests that the new orality has replaced the old, but not without borrowing some of the same concepts. Our presidents can speak directly to us, similar to his example of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. But now the information flows one way. The conversation is not really a conversation at all since there is no way for immediate reply, unlike the presidential debates in which a throng of people expressed their agreements or disagreements at the source.

So how does this all tie in?


We live in time vastly different even from 1982. Ong's idea of the new orality creating a stronger social connection (he cites Marshall McLuhan's Global Village) has increased exponentially. Now Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, and social media dominate our lives. The one way media sources of radio, television, etc. are not the same. Now with technology like the iPhone, Skype, and chat features, the relationship is two-way in many cases.

Okay so... thesis? Maybe? Well here is a claim anyway:  Through the use of social media and the technology behind the Digital Humanities, it is possible--maybe inevitable-- that aspects of oral culture will manifest themselves in modern culture.

This is already seen in those RSA videos. While based primarily off of text and visual stimulus, there is still an oral component. The video provides the viewers with their mnemonic devices so that they will remember it when trying to relate the video to someone else.

So lets explore the digital culture.