print, space and culture
In today’s modern society, it is difficult to imagine how our mode of communication would differ without speech, writing or reading. These simple tasks, which we practice instinctively everyday, has evolved from unrecognisable gestures, characters, images and symbols into how it is today. From the oral culture came writing – ‘writing served largely to recycle knowledge back into the oral world’ (Ong, 1995). Furthermore, the vital invention of printing has ‘replaced the lingering hearing-dominance in the world of thought and expression’ (Ong, 1995). PRINT… has been a form of communication since the ancient times. For example: pre-historic artefacts of symbols and engraved images have given evidence to ‘ancient printing’. Throughout history, oral literature (in various cultures) has altered somewhat from the influences of writing, printing and other technological advances. Written language is a way an author can persuade their readers/audience to share their perspectives. Printing ‘reinforces and transforms’ the oral and written culture into a visual form – as Ong (1995) cites ‘print locks words into position in space’. From this, there is the ability for the reader to read/see information, either dictated loudly or within themselves and also, interpret/visualise the content according to their own judgement. With the aid of printing machinery, printed articles/books/posters/etc are now able to be mass produced and thus it can be distributed across society. Interestingly, print has ‘created a sense of private ownership’ – plagiarism! Print encouraged the mind to sense that it’s possessions were held in some sort of inert mental space (Ong). Then came the Information/Technological Revolution, where the Internet is now a common source for gathering information in the form of HYPERTEXT – a computer mediated form of documentation to allow easy access for different audiences. And, because hypertext can also be interpreted depending on the reader’s attention, both the printed and hypertext form of literature allows audiences the freedom and right to form opinion on what he/she may have read, even though this may differ from that of the authors.
