Walter Ong: More non-neutrality

Walter Ong was a scholar whose work influenced Marshall McLuhan (the medium is the message). One of the important books he wrote was Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. In that book he differentiated cultures with primary orality (cultures with no writing) and literate cultures (those with writing). Interestingly, Ong suggests that of the 10,000 languages that survived to the beginning of the 20th century (only about half those still survive) only about 100 had writing. The conclusion is that we can draw is that writing (despite it being so "natural" to us is that have lived in text-rich cultures) is actually not the typical method of sharing and storing information.

As we review Ong's characterizations of primary orality and literacy, we can see that communication with 21st century information technology in many ways more resembles cultures with primary orality than literate cultures.

Ong's book is not terribly long, but for those looking for brief summary, I have found this to be a good resource.