COMM 10 - Critical Perspectives in Communication
Module 1
The Changing Landscape of Communication
Introduction
As we survey the changing landscape of communication, we are confronted by the
differentiation between orality and literacy. However, this introductory exploration of the
evolution of communication – its linguistic and cultural aspects and technological ways and means
(media) – advocates a dialogic approach to the dichotomies between various perspectives and
practices in telling a story. In the disparities and variance of storytelling, there is an
interconnectedness between medium(s) of communication (i.e. media convergence). Rather than
pitting oral cultures against literate cultures, and traditional media against new media, we will
consider the dialogic relationships between these variant cultures of communication and, in the
process, discover that orality informs literacy (and vice versa) and that new media emerged from
traditional media, which facilitates the convergence of traditional and new media resulting in the
blurring of genres.
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COMM 10 - Critical Perspectives in Communication
The importance of orality-literacy
1
studies in acquiring a critical perspective in
communication (which in turn entails the understanding of human identity in relation to the
environment and everyone in it) sets the stage for our venture into inquiring how media and
communication work and how they shape culture and society. We start with Walter Ong (2002),
who articulates the dialogic relationship between orality and literacy:
It is useful to approach orality and literacy synchronically2, by comparing oral
cultures and chirographic (i.e. writing) cultures that coexist at a given period of time.
But it is absolutely essential to approach them also diachronically or historically, by
comparing successive periods with one another. Human society first formed itself with
the aid of oral speech, becoming literate very late in its history, and at first only in
certain groups. Homo sapiens has been in existence for between 30,000 and 50,000
years. The earliest script dates from only 6,000 years ago. Diachronic study of orality
and literacy and of the various stages in the evolution from one to the other sets up a
frame of reference in which it is possible to understand better not only pristine oral
culture and subsequent writing culture, but also the print culture that brings writing to
a new peak and the electronic culture which builds on both writing and print. In this
diachronic framework, past and present, Homer and television, can illuminate one
another. (p. 2)
Humans developed oral communication first, and then written communication.
Communication is generally understood as the process of creating shared meaning among two or
more people (Baran, 2013), and every communication situation involves expression and
interpretation (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2001). Thus, we can say that, in a given communication
situation, there is an interchanging of roles between communicators — the sender and the receiver
— in the exchange of messages, and communication is an oscillating process of messaging
between expresser and interpreter.
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1
Primary oral culture is a culture with no knowledge whatsoever of writing or even of the possibility of writing
(i.e. literacy) (Ong, 1980). The technologizing of the word began in writing but later applied to words rendered
in various media (e.g. television, radio) as media can be considered as tools of inscription in the new literacies
(Coiro, Knobel, Lankshear, & Leu, 2008).
2
In linguistics, concerned with something as it exists at one point in time, as in synchronic language. Often
contrasted with diachronic, concerned with the way in which something, as in diachronic language, has
developed and evolved through time. (Oxford Dictionary of English, 2015)
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COMM 10 - Critical Perspectives in Communication
Learning Outcomes
After studying this module, you should be able to:
1. Trace the evolution of communication and media,
2. Discuss the role and power of communication in shaping culture and society, and
3. Apply a dialogic perspective on communication and media in your role as shapers of culture
and influencers of society.
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1.0
Orality and Literacy
Before we gained sophistication in organizing our knowledge about the world (and
ourselves), our ancestors sought to understand the workings of their environment by storytelling.
Lacking the knowledge (e.g. writing) and tools (e.g. pen and paper) of literacy, the practice of
orality in storytelling was the only way to disseminate, and consume, information (Ong, 2002). At
some point in history, humankind nonetheless began to draw and write, ushering in the age of
literary storytelling. Eventually, “technologizing the word” became more and more sophisticated
with the introduction of tools that aided in the demands of far more advanced thought-processing
necessary to address economic needs and other societal complexities. From the monastic
scriptoriums to Gutenberg's printing press, from the abacus to computers, audio recording, moving
image solutions (e.g. TV, cinema), humankind has continually sought to better the practice of
storytelling by inventing and reinventing (i.e. innovating) the ways and means of communication.
However, taking into account humankind’s evolving nature of knowing and
understanding, orality remained in some cultures and societies despite the emergence of literacy.
This has resulted in polarities between what is thought of as traditional and old, and what is new
and ‘state of the art’. Given the disparities between cultures of storytelling (i.e. oral vs. literary),
some questions arise: Is literacy better than orality? Is a primarily oral culture inferior to a literate
culture? Is orality out and literacy is in?
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COMM 10 - Critical Perspectives in Communication
Learning Activity 1
A. Gain a historical background on the evolution of information production, dissemination, and
consumption, as well as a critical perspective on the role of orality in media and communication
by reading the following excerpts from Walter Ong's book Orality and literacy: the
technologizing of the word:
“Introduction” on pp. 1-3
“Orality, Writing, and Being Human” on p. 171-172
B. The following are guide questions. Try answering them as you read through the readings.
1. What are the differences between primary oral cultures and literary cultures? How are
they related with each other?
2. What does Walter Ong mean by the intersubjectivity of communication? How does this
differentiate communication from media?
3. How does the ‘media’ model of communication show chirographic (i.e. writing)
conditioning?
C. To supplement your understanding of the difference between orality and literacy, read the
following online texts:
“Ong on the Differences Between Orality and Literacy”, available at http://
newlearningonline.com/literacies/chapter-1/ong-on-the-differences-between-orality-andliteracy
“Orality and Literacy — In what ways are oral and literate cultures similar?”, available at
https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540sept12/2012/09/30/1150/
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COMM 10 - Critical Perspectives in Communication
2.0
Traditional Media, Mass Media, New Media
We pick up from the early developments of communication where storytelling
progressed from oral cultures towards literacy when words became technologized. We learned
that the tools of inscription (e.g. pen/paper, movable printers, video camera) revolutionized
storytelling, enabling storytellers to disseminate their story to a larger audience across vast
distances. Thus, media (i.e. tools for communication) play an important role in the permanence
and mobility of culture among individuals, groups, and communities.
Culture, as learned behavior of members of a particular social group, can be contested. As
such, it can unite or divide a community. Culture is underpinned by language as an instrument for
the collection of knowledge and its distribution (Baran, 2013). Culture and language aid us in
classifying our experiences. In the process, it scaffolds our understanding about the world around
us. Culture cannot exist in the absence of communication, and communication is language. As
such, power can shift from those who can share their stories to a larger group through the use of
mass media technologies, whether traditional or new. In other words, our stories help define our
culture, but the goal for the civilized society is to shape culture professionally and ethically.
The ethical dimension in the creation of culture is very important. This is because the
power to influence communities and societies can shift from those who could show others their
special talent to those who could write and read them. It also means that the power to disseminate
information is afforded by the development of modern writing, which can help in constructing a
uniform meaning and language, enabling communication spread over greater distances and long
periods of time. The power shifts in disseminating information and cultures are fueled by
accessibility to the mediated means of communication (e.g. television, radio, print, internet).
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Learning Activity 2
A. Read the following chapters from Baran’s Introduction to mass communication: media literacy
and culture to learn about the evolution of mass communication and the relationships between
traditional media, mass media, and new media:
Chapter 1: The Evolving Mass Communication Process, p. 3-27
Chapter 8: Television, Cable, and Mobile Video, p.181-207
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COMM 10 - Critical Perspectives in Communication
B. The following are guide questions. Try answering them as you read through the readings.
1. What are the industrial or economic factors in the evolution of media from print to radio to
television?
2. What does the digitization of videos mean for information producers and consumers?
3. What are the pros and cons of media accessibility?
C. To supplement your understanding of how mass media impacts culture and society, view
the following video:
Mass Media: Society and Culture available at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RRyX9mI5Lw
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3.0
Media Convergence and Blurring of Genres
The previous discussion suggests that media convergence is not new. Among traditional
media, there was a kind of media convergence that emerged when newspapers shared content and
channels with radio news and vice versa. In the age of MTV, radio and TV would synchronize
broadcasts to promote newly released albums or singles. However, the convergence of media at this
time was limited only to having the same message content. It is digital technology that has made
possible the merging of text, audio, and video in ways that blur the conventional boundaries between
media. Indeed, media convergence is technically defined as the coming together of
telecommunications, computing, and broadcasting into a single digital bit-stream (Collins, 1998;
Gate, 2000) such as multimedia content accessed through mobile digital systems (e.g.
smartphone, tablets).
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Learning Activity 3
A. Read the following chapters from Baran’s Introduction to mass communication: media
literacy and culture to learn about the origin of media convergence and its impact on mass
communication:
Chapter 10: The Internet and the World Wide Web, p.231-261
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COMM 10 - Critical Perspectives in Communication
B. The following are guide questions. Try answering them as you read through the readings.
1. What constitutes a convergent media? How is it differentiated from traditional media?
Would you consider convergent media under the categories of new media? Explain your
answer.
2. How do convergent media empower individuals to assert themselves in the bigger society?
Think of the metaphor of David and Goliath.
3. Compare and contrast the evolution of communication from orality to literacy and the
evolution of media from traditional media to convergent media. Reflecting on how these
developments came about, what could be assumed (or predicted) for the future of media
production and consumption and/or mass communication?
C.
To supplement your understanding of how mass media impacts culture and society, read and
view the following:
Chapter 2: Convergence and the Reshaping of Mass Communication, p. 29-45
“What is convergence?” available at https://mconvergence.wordpress.com/about/
“Media Convergence” available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lcUKjGKiEw
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The Dialogism of Convergent Media
We started this module by investigating the dichotomy between the oral and literary
practice of storytelling, how cultures are shaped by such communicative practices, and the media
or inscriptive technologies that emerged from such practices. We explored how storytelling, which
underpins the processing of knowledge and dissemination of cultures, progressed into several
modes and media of communication and how these tools of information production and
consumption have the potential to inform each other despite their disparities. And we discovered
that societies and cultures are built on both the old and the new, the past and the present, and the
crude and the highly developed.
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COMM 10 - Critical Perspectives in Communication
There is a dialogic relationship among media in their convergent form (i.e. multimedia,
new media). According to Bakhtin (1981), past cultural works (e.g. literature) are continually
informed by the present versions of the same cultural work (and vice versa), not as a matter of
influence but as a continuous dialogue that oscillates both ways. As Spicheva (2014) puts it, "All
the manifestations of culture are combined in this digital Universe which merges the past, the
present, and future manifestations of the communicative thought in a gigantic historical supertext"
(p. 82).
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Timeline of the Changing Landscape of Communication
I.
Reality is argued to be non-existent without meaning, with the latter to be impossible
without language (Saussure, 1916).
A. Hence, our reality is claimed to be influenced by our language and vice versa.
B. The ultimate purpose of communication therefore is to maintain culture (Baran,
2013).
C. The in-depth history of humanity can be seen through the evolution of
communication.
II.
The history of communication started with an exclusively oral system of communication.
A. People relied on memorized chants and mythologies to understand the world.
1. Mnemonic formulas were used to aid in memorization.
2. Sentence structures were redundant, also to aid in memorization.
3. Ideas were close to one’s immediate surroundings as an exclusively oral
language cannot distance itself from abstract ideas.
4. People’s mindsets were more focused on the present than the past due to the
limitations of human memory.
5. The main mode of communication is highly somatic, and people heavily relied
on gestures to instill information (1-5 from Ong, 2002).
B. At some point in history, humankind began to draw and write, ushering in the age of
literary storytelling.
C. The Oral Era of communication eventually ended when agrarian settlements had to
account for assets (Poe, 2010). During the 7th to 13th century, religion was an
authoritative source of enlightenment.
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COMM 10 - Critical Perspectives in Communication
D. Early handwritten books were written 1000 years before the printing press was
invented.
E. Books were written on animal skin and are mostly religious in nature.
F. Books were not mass produced, hence they were not very accessible.
III.
The printing press was invented at the end of the 13th century, shortly before the
Renaissance Period.
A. Publishing companies began producing secular books for knowledge.
B. Books became more accessible.
C. The Renaissance Period, brought about by the sudden shift of enlightenment, paved
the way to inventions that would later revolutionize communication.
IV.
By 1775 humanity’s perception of the world expanded due to its first opportunity to
communicate in long distances.
A. The industrial revolution came with the invention of the steam train.
B. The railway system improved the postal services.
C. People began writing letters for long-distance communication.
1. Correspondence in long-distance communication then took more time and
effort than it does today.
2. Letter-writing has a more rigid structure than long-distance messages today.
V.
During the 1800’s, long-distance communication and mass media were made more
efficient.
A. Joseph Henry invented the electric telegraph in 1831, which was then further
improved by Samuel FB Morse in 1837.
B. High-speed presses made newspapers cheaper.
C. The contemporary telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell (1849).
VI.
In the 1900’s people have become constant consumers of mass media due to technological
innovations brought about by the post-war era.
A. Commercial broadcasting hit the waves in the 1920s.
B. The radio became the main source of entertainment in households.
C. Television made its official debut at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.
D. The cell phone was invented by Dr. Martin Cooper (1973).
E. The growing economy after the war strengthened the purchasing power of the masses,
and mass media followed suit by bombarding every mass media production with
advertisements.
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COMM 10 - Critical Perspectives in Communication
VII.
The digital era in the 21st Century gave birth to a globalized culture, and humanity’s
perception of the world is now at its widest.
A. The internet, first invented in 1967 for military purposes, became an accessible
commodity.
B. The smartphone was invented, along with its social media and blogging applications.
1. Long-distance communication became instant, and its message construction
became less rigid due to certain features of new communication applications.
2. People can now communicate and engage in activities with other people
regardless of their location.
3. Mass media became more accessible and portable.
VIII.
Communication technology has come a long way, and so has the culture of society.
A. We started with a smaller perception of the world as we had to understand it with the
limitations of human memory as our “library” of information.
B. Eventually we found ways to memorialize knowledge through books and written
documents, giving us more time and “mental space” to understand abstract ideas.
1. Books (and human consciousness therefore) were more focused on religion at
first during the Middle Ages.
2. Eventually secular books gave more avenues for enlightenment during the
Renaissance Period.
C. The enlightenment brought about by the Renaissance Period resulted in innovations
that revolutionized communication, among other things.
D. The range of communication widened through the development of long-distance
communication and mass media, and as communication widened its scope, so has our
view of the world.
E. Our mode of communication has become more sophisticated with the development of
modern communication tools to aid in the demands of a more advanced thoughtprocessing needed to address economic and societal complexities.
F. Today, modern social media applications have globalized our culture, as we are now
constant consumers of mass media both of local and international origin.
G. Media propagated the awareness and understanding of the presence of cultural
diversity by providing contents that show a glimpse, and not the entirety, of these
other cultures.
H. This emphasizes the heterogeneity of cultural groups and the often conflictual nature
of cultural boundaries.
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COMM 10 - Critical Perspectives in Communication
I. The fluidity and changing nature of culture makes it contestable as exemplified by
multicultural and hybrid identities.
J. Culture is not just the expression of local communal lives; we need to view it in the
context of history, politics, and social context.
K. It encourages us to “move beyond hegemonic definitions of culture as ‘shared and
transmitted from generation to generation’ that assumes that we will experience a
‘common culture’ and… is passed down from one generation to the next in a linear
and seemingly static fashion” (Baran, 2013).
L. Media affects our perception of a culture by eliciting negative or positive perceptions,
which may lead to generalizing a certain culture and/or accepting what seemed to be
taboo in the past because of what is presented by the media.
M. If you were to look at the features of the communication media we constantly
consume, who do you think are we now?
*III-VIII (Poe, 2010; University of Minnesota Libraries, 2016).
References (for the timeline)
Baran, S. (2013). Introduction to Mass Communication: Media Literacy and Culture. New York,
NY, USA: McGraw Hill.
Ong, W. (2002). Orality and Literacy. London, UK: Routledge
Poe, M.T. (2010). A History of Communications: Media and Society from the Evolution of
Speech to the Internet. USA: Cambridge University Press.
University of Minnesota Libraries. (2016, September 29). Communication: History and Forms.
Retrieved July 29, 2020, from https://open.lib.umn.edu/communication/chapter/1-1communication-history-and-forms/
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Conclusion
In this module, we traced the evolution of communication from oral to written form, and
the development of media from traditional to new and convergent media. We learned about oral
storytelling as an early form of communication. As technology advanced, new tools of inscription
(Coiro, Knobel, Lankshear, & Leu, 2008) and dissemination (e.g. mass media) were introduced,
which increased the influence of our stories from our immediate communities to larger societies
and cultures, with far-reaching effects. Whoever wields control over mass media has the power
to dominate, raising ethical issues in the practice of communication. However, the advent of
digital media (i.e. multimedia, new media), through the introduction of the internet, has made it
possible for ordinary individuals to disseminate their own stories, thus creating counter-cultures
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COMM 10 - Critical Perspectives in Communication
and altering to some extent the power relations in communication and media practice and in
society as a whole. Communication practice today is multifaceted and complex, and we are called
upon to develop a more critical understanding of the role of communication in addressing various
challenges confronting society and in building a better world for all.
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Summative Assessment
With your knowledge on the changing landscape of communication, write a 750-word
reflective essay answering this question: How are you influenced by the media as a consumer
and content-maker? You may base your examples on your lifestyle, and/or in tackling current
events and economics.
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Readings:
Baran, S. J. (2014). Introduction to Mass Communication: Media Literacy and Culture (8th ed.).
New York, NY, USA: McGraw Hill.
Ong, W. (2002). Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (30th Anniversary ed.).
London, UK: Routledge.
References
Bakhtin, M. (1981). The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. (M. Holquist, Ed.) Texas, USA:
University of Texas Press.
Coiro, J., Knobel, M., Lankshear, C., and Leu, D. (2008). Central issues in new literacies and new
literacies research. In J. Coiro, M. Knobel, C. Lankshear, & D. Leu (Eds.), Handbook of
Research on New Literacies. New York, NY, USA: Routledge.
Gate, A. (2000). Convergence and competition: Technological change, industry concentration and
competition policy in the telecommunications sector. University of Toronto Facul-ty of Law
Review, 58(2), 83-117.
Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence Culture. New York, New York, USA: New York University Press.
Kress, G., and Van Leeuwen, T. (2001). Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media of
Contemporary Communication. London, UK: Hodder Education.
Latzer, M. (2014). Media convergence. In R. Towse, & C. Handke (Eds.). Handbook of the Digital
Creative Economy. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Spicheva, D. (2014). Image communication in virtual reality culture. Wolkenkuckucksheim | CloudCuckoo-Land | Воздушный замок (32), 81-90.
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Rubric for grading the Summative Assessment activity
Paper addresses the
topic
Comprehension
Reflection/Deep
thought
Paragraph
organization and
writing style
Clearly organized
introduction, body,
conclusion
10
The student’s
reflection about
the topic is
explained in clear
language,
immediately
interesting and
supported with
detail.
The student’s
reflection
engagement with
a great number of
the key points in
the readings.
Paper provides
evidence that the
student has
examined his/her
own belief
systems and
related this to
his/her current
views about the
topic.
Each paragraph
has a central idea;
ideas are
connected, and
paragraphs are
developed with
details; paper is
easy to read and
“flows” naturally
in an organized
pattern.
Easy to read,
topic is
introduced,
organization is
clearly evident
with proper
introduction,
body, conclusion.
7
The entire
paper’s content
relates to the
topic; the student
explains his/her
reflections about
the topic but may
take a re-reading
to understand.
The student’s
reflection
demonstrates
understanding of
most of the key
points in the
readings.
Paper provides
evidence that the
student has
examined his/her
own belief
systems and
related this to
his/her current
views about the
topic but may
need re-reading
to understand.
Each paragraph
has a central idea
that is supported
with details;
ideas are
connected, and
important points
make sense.
4
Student does not
clearly identify
his/her reflections
about the topic;
may veer from the
topic.
0
The topic of the
paper is not
addressed at all
and fails to stick
to the topic.
The student’s
reflection
demonstrates
understanding of
some of the key
points in the
readings.
The paper shows
that the student has
thought about the
topic although the
written
presentation may
lack clarity.
The student’s
reflection
demonstrates little
or no
understanding of
or attention to the
readings.
Paper does not
present detailed
evaluation of
reflection about
the topic.
Paragraphs are
disorganized; ideas
are included which
do not relate to the
main idea; ideas
are not connected
and have little or
no supporting
details.
Ideas are not
connected and do
not make sense.
Paper has
introduction,
body, conclusion
but may take a
re-reading to
understand.
Disorganized,
reader is
wondering what is
being said, ending
is abrupt.
Disorganized and
the reader cannot
follow the paper
at any length.
(adapted from https://www.utc.edu/nursing/pdfs/classes/rubric-reflections.pdf)
(nothing follows)
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