Week 2 – The Tradition of Western Literacy

A B C’s – A Graded Society

On reflection of week two’s readings I am curious as to why it is that we often assign higher levels of intelligence and greater meaning to literate communication rather than oral? The invention of the alphabet and literacy by the Greek’s circa 700 B.C. created an enormous turn in power as it put the Greek’s well ahead of society and enabled them an advantage in the world of communications (Crowley & Heyer 2011).  The technology advancements ing writing brought on a shift in the way that human beings began to relate to each other (Murphie & Potts 2003, p. 13) and initially it created a class system whereby only the privileged had rights to literacy (Crowley & Heyer 2011, p. 38). Fast-forward the power of written communication to the 15^th century printing press that enabled information sharing and education (Dittmar 2011, p. 1134). This revolution began to empower people with knowledge and helped to lessen the divide between people.

Something I found interesting throughout the readings is the importance that society has placed on written communication since its invention as opposed to verbal communication, which existed long before any such form of recorded communication. It is also interesting to note that in the process of transferring our internal thoughts and personal experiences into words it can lead to slight adjustments being made, often more elaborate than the original (Ong 2011, cited in Crowley & Heyer, 2011, p. 52). However, the idea that written communication separates the information from the writer in literate communication creates a sense of objectivity and authenticity and is often perceived as having higher merit than verbal communication (Logan 2011, cited in Crowley & Heyer 2011, p. 44), even if the written communication is somewhat distorted from the truth.

References

Crowley, D & Heyer, P 2011, Communication in history technology, culture, society sixth edition, Pearson Higher Education, Boston.

Dittmar, JE 2011, ‘Information technology and economic change: The impact of the printing press’, Quarterly Journal Of Economics, vol. 126, no. 3, pp. 1133-1172.

Murphie, A & Potts, J 2003, Culture and technology, Palgrave, New York.