–Ong’s theories about rhetoric, consciousness, and culture focused on the evolution from primarily oral communication to written communication. Obviously, the media landscape has evolved significantly since then. But more recent technologies like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Tik Tok, show that the evolution of media has accelerated even since the rise of earlier digital technologies like email, texting, and instant messaging. So, how have these more recent digital technologies further changed our consciousness?
–McLuhan’s idea that “the medium is the message” also emerged long before social media. If different media (newspaper, television, magazine) describing a news event can change the meaning we receive about the event, how might (for instance) getting a link to a news story from a Facebook friend affect how we receive the message?
–Recalling last week’s discussion: Is it possible today to have a “universal audience” in the sense described by Chaim Perelman (from Chapter 4 of the textbook)? Was it ever possible, in practice, to have a universal audience?
