Introduction
The computer rewrites the history of writing by sending us back
to reconsider nearly every aspect of the earlier technologies. (Jay
David Bolter, 1991:46)
Electronic text will . . . serve as the vehicle for displaying all of Western
literature in a new light. Since much of this literature is oral in origin
and nature, and self-consciously rhetorical, and since electronic text is
both oral and rhetorical to a degree, "repurposing" can reveal
to us aspects of our greatest works of art--literary, artistic, and musical--that
we have never noticed before. Robert Winter told me that in creating his
Ninth Symphony program he heard things that he had not only never
heard before, but had never been able to hear before. I think electronic
text will allow us to hear lots of things, in both reading and writing,
that we have never been able to hear before. [Richard
A. Lanham, 1993:print/131; hypertext/476-77; author's emphasis]
. . . soon most information will be generated collaboratively by the cyber-tribal
hunter-gatherers of cyberspace. (John
Perry Barlow: 90)
I have long been intrigued by Walter Ong's provocatively parallel terms,
"primary" and "secondary orality."/1/
However, Ong only tantalizes
with a few offhand comments alluding to similarities or differences between
primary and secondary orality. In Orality and Literacy, the magnum
opus that summarized his lifework, Ong admits candidly that "various
kinds of residual orality as well as the 'literate orality' of the secondary
oral culture induced by radio and television awaits in-depth study"
(160; emphasis added). Now retired, Ong never carried out this "in-depth
study" himself.
Evidence of a secondary, electronic orality has burgeoned in the last decade.
Ong's Orality and Literacy, published in 1982, appeared in the
early days of the microcomputer revolution, predating the cyberpunk science
fiction movement, the appearance of HyperCard and other hypertext software
applications, and the recent exponential growth of traffic on the Internet.
Ong's hoped for in-depth study of secondary orality is well under way now,
and some academics are making valuable contributions to it (Boomershine;
Brent; December;
Enos; Farrell;
Finnegan; Harnad;
Moulthrop; Mullins,
1990; 1993a; 1993b; Scott;
Theall; Zuboff),
but the real exploration is being conducted by hackers, crackers, cyberpunks,
console cowboys, Internet surfers, netheads, and other denizens of cyberspace
(Levy; Hafner
and Markoff; Sterling;
Rheingold, 1993).
The main thesis of this paper is reflected in my title(s). I suspect that
Ong is correct that a new orality is emerging in Electronic Age. In fact
I suspect that it is the sensibilities induced by our use of electronic
media that have allowed us to reacquaint ourselves with the sensibilities
of primary oral cultures. In the discussion that follows, I propose that
we consider hypertext as paradigmatic of digital, electronic communication,
and that we consider how the experience of hypertext might enhance our sensibilities
to the characteristics of ancient, primary orality. Furthermore, electronic
communication brings to the foreground a host of ethical and political issues,
which I shall survey briefly.
The discussion that follows crystallized for me as I read the following
three books: Jay David Bolter's Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext,
and the History of Writing; Richard A. Lanham's The Electronic
Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts; and George P. Landow's Hypertext:
The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology./2/
Each observes the return of orality in the Electronic Age, and each suggests
that hypertext can serve as a lens through which to re-vision the history
of media, thus allowing us to see things we have never before been able
to see (Bolter,1991:46; Lanham,
1993: 213; Landow:102-103).
Thus my thesis is a variation on a theme by Bolter, Lanham, and Landow.
What is "hypertext"? Ted Nelson, the computer visionary and activist
who coined the word, defines it as "non-sequential writing--text
that branches and allows choices to the reader, best read at an interactive
screen. As popularly conceived, this is a series of text chunks connected
by links which offer the reader different pathways" (Nelson,
1992:0/2)./3/ Thus, hypertext consists
(the language varies) of nodes or writing spaces, connected by links created
either by the author/creator or by the reader/user. By activating an existing
link or by creating a new one, the reader can jump from node to node and
thus blaze a trail through the network or web that is the "docuverse"
(Landow) of the hypertext.
The experience of navigating through a hypertext is not alien to readers
of codex books. For example, the cross references in a study Bible function
like hypertext links, only the reader has to do a laborious manual search
to turn up the cross-referenced text. Imagine if, with the click of a mouse
button on a computer screen, it were to pop instantly. Or again, glancing
from the main body of this paper to the footnotes below is also a hypertextual
jump (Landow:4-5). But if this
paper were an electronic hypertext, I could create links from the footnotes
to their own 'footnotes,' or better to computer files containing the
full texts of the titles in my bibliography, which themselves could
be linked to still more texts, and so on, as long as human perseverance
and computer storage space permits. Precursors to hypertext may also be
found among some of the intriguing works of modern fiction, which strain
against the physical limitations of the printed page, crying out for the
freedom and fluidity of hypertext. Works such as Sterne's Tristram Shandy,
Joyce's Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, and Borges's "Library
of Babel" and "Garden of Forking Paths" might be more at
home in hypertext than in print (Bolter,
1991:132-39).
It is vital to understand that hypertext is not restricted to words only.
Hypertext can include any kind of information that can be digitized electronically:
scanned images (including color photographs), stereo sound, videotape, and
animation. Therefore, when I use the word "hypertext," I use it
broadly to include "hypermedia" or "interactive multimedia."/4/
There is no reason to limit hypertext to the storage capacity of one's own
desktop computer. By nature, electronic media are networked media; the computers
of the world are increasingly connected through local and wide-area networks
and by the Internet (Fowler,
1993). Through the World Wide Web (=WWW), using a front-end graphical user
interface such as Mosaic,/5/ one can
explore the riches of the Internet by following hypertextual connections
between the multitudinous resources on the Net. If the user has the appropriate
hardware and software and plenty of bandwidth, then Mosaic allows one to
access digital resources residing on Internet computers all over the world--to
read a text, to view digitized photos or graphics, to play a video clip,
or to listen to a digitized sound. We are rapidly approaching the realization
of a global hypertext that was only dreamed of a few years by fanatics such
as Ted Nelson, in his fabled "Xanadu Project" (Nelson,
1987; 1991)./6/
At first glance other forms of computer mediated communication, such as
email, newsgroups, Internet Relay Chat, multi-user dungeons or domains,
might seem more "oral" than hypertext./7/
But as the digital media continue to melt together, increasingly it becomes
clear that in cyberspace "everything is connected."/8/
Hypertext is networks of digital, electronic connection. Thus,
"hypertext" can be construed broadly to include "all of the
above" and more. For the purposes of this paper, I propose to take
hypertext as paradigmatic of digital, electronic media and CMC.
In the remainder of this paper, I shall do three things. One, I shall describe
the salient features of hypertext. Two, I shall describe some of the major
characteristics of primary orality, as outlined by Walter Ong, and indicate
how our use of hypertext can awaken us to the primary orality of antiquity.
Three, I shall point out areas in which the ethics and politics of electronic
communication are fiercely debated today.
(Go to the next section)
(Go to the previous section)
(Go to the Outline)