Whither Digitality? The Relationship Between Orality, Literacy, and Digitality, Past and Present: From Spoken Traditions to Digital Media
Rebecca Jean Emigh
Abstract:Orality, literacy, and digitality are forms of knowledge and communication based on speech, reading and writing, and electronic technologies using binary formats, respectively. This article reviews four possible relationships between them: Is literacy (and by extension digitality) the superior form, is orality superior, are all three mostly interchangeable, or do they all change each other as they emerge historically? These different positions imply different histories: linear, contingent, and epochal. This ar… Show more
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