Orality and literacy 25 years later

Communication Research Trends, Dec, 2007 by Paul A. Soukup

   For example, Ong's (1988) argument that primary orality was
   fundamentally a pre-Gutenberg Press phenomenon might now be revised
   with greater consideration given to the cultural differences
   between African and Asian orality before the European shift
   (importation) of orality to Greece. We are not saying that Ong
   believed orality was conceived by the Greeks. We are suggesting
   that Ong privileges a moment in Western culture, the typographic
   printing of the Gutenberg Bible, to the exclusion of a wider
   perspective of culture that sees Africa and Asia as central moments
   in the genesis and revelation of orality (one is hard pressed to
   find more than a sentence or two on Africa in his book). (p. 57)

Elmer (1997) also finds the book valuable, noting that "... most researchers of the Internet have turned to the likes of Marshall McLuhan and Walter Ong in communication theory or William Gibson and James Joyce in literature to sketch a largely corporeal view of contemporary Internet culture ..." (p. 182). His own interest in the process and consequences of an index leads to a footnoted critique of one small part of the book: "By way of comparison, Walter Ong's (1982, p. 123) discussion of the index tends to conflate its possibilities or qualities with that of the simple list, in so doing limiting an understanding of space to that of the structure of the printed word on a page (which is forthwith juxtaposed against the form and structure of the spoken word)" (p. 190). Each of these criticisms generally accept the overall accomplishment of Orality and Literacy but find that the book does not go far enough.

More serious criticism comes from those who question one or another premise of the book. Ess, Kawabalta, and Kurosaki (2007) do so in the introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication in which they connect Ong's work in Orality and Literacy to that of Harold Innis (1951), terming the perspective the Innis-Ong thesis--"perhaps the single most influential theory in communication studies in the latter half of the 20th century." They continue, "however, this approach has come under criticism on several points, beginning with its tendency toward a technological determinism that is no longer seen to hold up in the face of empirical evidence" (p. 953, note 1). Ess had made that point in greater detail in an earlier essay where he questions the claim that changes in communication media (from orality to literacy, for example) lead to a "profound cultural revolution" (Ess, 2004, p. 30, italics in original). For him, "the categorical distinctions between orality and literacy are increasingly suspect--precisely in light of more recent analysis of computer-mediated communication" (p. 30, italics in original). What he finds in these studies indicates a continuity of the categories. He also criticizes the thesis for its philosophical assumptions of technological determinism and neutrality of media (p. 31). Given that he conjoins the work of Ong with that of Innis as well as McLuhan, he may read into Orality and Literacy things left unsaid by Ong.