Literacy vs. Orality / Writing vs. Speech

In the very beginning, many cultures could not grasp the idea of writing things down. There was neither set alphabet nor system of pictograms that could communicate wide scale ideas and information around the world. It is hard to imagine a society that has any form of government being able to run with function yet having no system to write down what its learning’s, rules, and the very tradition of its own culture down. Yet, this was the truth of many people before the Greeks, who now researchers give, credit for creating a system of symbols with a given sound to them. Although, people in a society as ours, cannot understand how these people survived we must look at the context of sound and its different relationships to look at if these societies were really that much different from our own.

When we look at sound as an object, we have to look at its biggest relationship that has the strongest connection to it, which is time. Time has the biggest relationship to sound because it is time that creates the sensation given with sound. What sounds to form words are said at certain times is a good example of this relationship between sound and time. As Walter Ong put it (History of Communication pg. 67) “All sensation takes place in time, but no other sensory field totally resists a holding action, stabilization, in quite this way.” If we put sound in this context than we can see the importance of sound, the way we say a word and what it means in that time place and what has not been written down in the past.

That is why its’ been found that in primary oral cultures and ones that are semi-oral that there is a limited vocabulary that is made up usually of action words. Ong presents many good examples of this “limited” vocabulary such as the word Dabar in the Hebrew language; which can be translated as either: “word” and event”. We can see that these words mean the same thing yet have two very different translations to themselves, which changes the complete context of the sentence that the speaker presents. Yet, that is important to note of primary oral languages, that this is essential to how they worked before. For the words, you said and what you said in that time was what had been important to the people, because researchers have found that these words usually conveyed to been enforced by power. With this idea the actions of re-calling is much more important to oral people. Without re-call, these societies would not be able to function and survive the way they had years before the invention of the written system.

Using this idea of re-call and the true impact of words, which we discovered is just as good as the writing system, then compared to the writing system, which allows us to sugar coat objects, we get into the topic of which is better. In the sense of a technology, based society writing has over taken us by means of the printing press, the phonograph, and even the invention of Morse code. Yet, when it comes to being honest and looking at human interaction it is the oral system that is superior in society. A great example of this is with the internet, on the internet there is a system known s emotion cons. These small smiley help express on a voiceless system how we feel to other people since there is no such thing as tone on the world wide net. Without using these, we could not express sarcasm, anger, fear and many more emotions that help us make the building blocks we have with other people. While we live in a technology ran society these oral skills have survived million of years and has become so superior to the writing system because the key to its survival has been so important to human existence and allowing people to live in societies. Without its success at allowing people to be honest with each other than people would not be able to live in the same place since oral language allows us to learn more about other people, as Ong has put it; “Knowledge is ultimately not a fractioning but a unifying phenomenon, a striving for harmony. Without harmony, an interior condition, the psyche is in bad health.” Using this ideology it is the knowledge that our voice and tone and vocabulary that gives us knowledge and knowledge to other people which in turns gives us unity and the truest sense of harmony that is found.

Media Habbits

Media habits are the habits that everyone of us has that involve any form of technology. Such as using the internet or your cell phone, each of us in our high tech society uses and has some form of media habits that we personally do every single day. Be it from downloading the latest song onto our ipod or our phones or checking out what the latest game fourm has to say.

Yet, it's easy to see why all of us have formed the habits that we do with using technology. Technology is an amazing piece of information that links us to everything we are and everything we are not. This linking of information has helped people find things they never would have experienced before.

If we talk about media habits from a non-internet technology stand point (i.e newspapers or the t.v.) then it's easy to say most college students would have little, to no habits with this median. Personally, I do not get the newspaper at my house because I live on my own but when at school every chance I get I remember to pick up an issue to catch up with what I have been missing what my no cable or no internet 40 year old house has been depriving me of. Which I believe is still important to do once in a while. I also make sure to check out (basically sniff around) any of the number of newspaper my father is devouring every morning. We also try and remember to check out the morning news when we actually wake up for when they show it.

Yet, from looking at a internet technology stand point many people have tons and tons of media habits they form. Personally WITHOUT the internet I would never be the person I am today. The things I am interested in and like are things so out there that without these habits I would be left completely alone with out any way to connect with people who enjoy the things I do.

Without the internet I would not be able to connect with sites like YouTube, I wouldn't be able to watch videos of the new hottest song I love to dance with, even though personally I am more of a fan of veoh which is slowly taking over the place of You Tube within the community of people who para para since the company that produces the videos are taking down accounts for these media habits and not buying officaial videos from them.

So without these medians such as YouTube and Veoh, fans like myself would be left out with buying $30 dvds just to be able to do what we like to do.

Another way I connect with people who enjoy to para para and the gyaru life style is using medians like Livejournal, which allows many different communities towards people interested in doing these sort of things. So that is one of my major media habits. I connect with most of my friends with using this site. It is a blog site that allows mass groups and communities for people to join in with and connect to make new friends. It also allows things like videos, songs, and pictures to be passed along people. Which is one of my favorite aspects of using livejournal is that I can now have access with millions of things that interest me at the span of just my fingertips

Or it could even be to just enjoy a rousing old hour of searching 4chan, a site which is as it claims, the place the internet goes to die and one of the favorite places of my friends. So I check it out now and then to understand where they come from to and to know the latest internet trend.

(Full of fail! You have won the internet)

I personally find these "nerdy" sites to be my biggest media habit. I think it's great that it's easy to access these forms because I am hope that these media habits of other people will make it easier for people who enjoy things like gyaru, anime, para para, or anything Japanese/foreign openly and accepted for these enjoyments.

I also think that these new advances in media habits will help people not feel so out of place in their own skin or feel like they have to be ashamed for being so geeky. In fact I love being a girl gamer and going to gaming forms, personally. I enjoy talking about the next nerdy thing on the internet and laughing right along side it with my friends. Because remember:

The blog I am following

This is the blog I plan to follow. It's an independent liberal blog source.

http://www.groupnewsblog.net/

Hope that is alright, for you.

Don't worry, it'll be quick and painless.

Hello, my name is Katie S. as some might know and some might not know, which is what makes this experiment so extremely interesting!

I am 18 years old transfer student that is currently attending UMBC. I live with my boyfriend, Joe (he's a musician, I am a dreamer), our two dogs. and our one lone beta fish.

The first is a mini wiener dog who is all red.

His name is Maxi and his personality is crazy but he can be really cute, which had seem to be the only reason we keep him around. Joking, of course. The second is a new addition to our small and hectic life, is a little puppy who is a mix of a wiener dog and a Chihuahua, so basically...she's kinda ugly. But she was blessed with bug eyes and long floppy ears to tickle the human heart strings with. Her name is Tira. The lone beta is a blue and red mixture and his name is Voldo.

Now, if you couldn't have guessed, I am a huge gaming freak. That is why, yes, all our animals are named after soul calibur characters. If you do not know what that is, it's one of your standard basic fighting games. The games have been around for a while and was part of the soul set. It even was on dreamcast, and the 4th one is coming out for PS3, so all you lucky fans out there I suggest you go pick it up. It is also getting a smaller storyline version for the new psp that is coming out. I told you, and I'll say it again, yes I am a huge gaming freak. I am not good at them personally, but I love to talk about them.

Actually, there is a number of things I am interested in that would shock some people. Such as my music taste, people assume that because I have piercings or tattoos I should be into heavy rock right? Not at all! I love hip hop, rap, trance, and almost anything that isn't American Rock! When I say American rock, I mean i enjoy rock music, just not bands in America, I find them to be over played and usually do the same thing over and over again. Just as I do not enjoy Finnish bands...they are simply scary. Yet, if you see me driving around campus you'll find me bumping beats and listening to whatever hot club song is popular at the moment. I love to dance so I am always listening to something that is easy to dance too or has a very bright beat in it. I think dancing is very therapeutic, and I like to just dance randomly in store isles.

Actually, most people wouldn't know these things about me since I am actually super shy. I try not to be but it's really hard for me to open up to other people. So, having a class where I just can't sit and take notes is really different to me. I enjoy discussions and talking to people but I know I can be super opinionated and hard to take sometimes. I like to listen to all sides but sometimes I feel that there are somethings that just need to be said.

I think that's why, personally, I find this assignment to be really hard. I mean...it can be super intimidating. When you think about the use of blogging at our fingertips, or what it means to other people who read websites or blogs like Perez Hilton. How literal will this be taken? And how will the information presented here going to form different opinions? How will you knowing that I am a major in Theatre make you see me? Or if you find out I am a stage actor? That I enjoy Broadway? Does that make me look nerdy? Or that I enjoy Japanese trance and stylish dancing routines made to them? That my goal in life is to move to Japan? I love bollywood films! I love the fashion movement of the girls in the picture above the text!

That's why I believe classes like these which look at media are important for student to have. I think it is very important we look at these things and see how they affect ourselves, each other, and how we see things. Since the Media is affecting how we view ourselves and how our personalities are shaped in general.

So, that is me.