Page 77 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report

The sound medium par excellence, the radio, made mass communication possible. Whereas a book needed to be printed and purchased by each reader, a single radio broadcast could reach a large number of people easily and cheaply. In this connection Silvia always recalls the social alarm triggered by the broadcast of The War of the Worlds4 directed by Orson Welles and aired over the CBS network on 31 October 1938. It drew attention to the power of a radio broadcast that reached thousands of people.
Indeed, according to McLuhan (1989), radio
and mass communication were the factor that caused a shift in the then prevailing western print culture. Thanks to motion pictures and
the subsequent emergence of television (in the 1930s), mass communication spread and audiovi- sual language began to take on importance.
Nowadays we are experiencing what Barrow (2008) calls digital orality arising from the Internet era. The main change with respect to the traditional audiovisual media like radio and television is that people are beginning to be active users as opposed to mere recipients, and interaction is encouraged. Now Silvia decides what content she wishes to consume, as well
as when and where. She also seeks to be able
to interact, give her opinion and share what she likes. This characteristic is made possible by the latest technological advances. The smaller size and weight of modern mobile phones has made them people’s most important means of commu- nication, information and entertainment today.
New audiovisual formats have appeared that store sound (podcast) or images (YouTube). The communication system has also incorporated images and likewise reproduces digital orality in formats such as Skype, which differs from pure orality only in the distance between speakers. They are formats which, like the well-known TED Talks, greatly resemble early oral forms. Therefore, digital orality is characterised by
four factors: use of technology, long-distance transmission on a mass scale, storage and repro- duction capacity when the subject decides and possibilities of interaction. But in this context, why are voices and sound so easy to transmit? We will now analyse these two elements to attempt to understand the reason for their rise.
Digital orality is characterised by four factors: use of technology, long-distance transmission on a mass scale, storage and reproduction capacity and possibilities of interaction.
Elements of orality: voice and sound
When Silvia was at school, most of what she did was focused on learning the written language. For some years now education has been centred on writing and attaches less importance to orality, taking it for granted to be a secondary process. In contrast to this idea, according to Goody (1968) most cultures convey their atti- tudes and values face-to-face, and for this reason Rosenberg (1987) coined the term “oralature”. It is true. We have forgotten that orality is previous to and precedes writing. Most children learn to speak without going to school (Mizrach, 1998). But as writing is a code that represents oral language, a formal learning process is needed. To read and write well, it is first necessary to speak and listen “well”, that is, it is first necessary to have a good command of oral language.
AC/E DIGITAL CULTURE ANNUAL REPORT 2018
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Digital Trends in Culture