In this essay the paper is to discuss the characteristics of Oral, Scribal and Typographical in the light of McLuhan and Ong's work. To enable the paper to do this effectively the paper will discuss the importance of each, mentioned, styles of communication discussing their strength and weaknesses in comparison to one another. Throughout the Essay the paper will refer to McLuhan and Walter Ong's works. The paper will firstly discuss the Oral culture followed by Scribal culture and finally Typographical culture.

An Oral culture is one that uses communication by word of mouth. Pictures may be used as an addition. Reading and Writing are not involved in the communication process of Oral culture.

'Oral transmission needs personal, often (depending on the nature and complexity of the information) prolonged, contact between two or more individuals who have to be physically present at the same time and in the same place'.

With reference to the above quote it is noted that in an Oral culture one of the main downfalls is the distance between communicators. A physical pres

Since the Typographical culture we have seen two new communicational mediums step into the next form of evolution, they are the Electronic culture and the Wired culture. Even though these mediums are much faster they seem to consist of attributes from the other three mediums. Marshall McLuhan was impressed with this electronic culture as he thought Radio, Television and Film was turning the World into a global village. From everything that is classified as an electronic culture McLuhan has classed them into two groups, Hot media and Cold media.

A Scribal culture is one that has writing, although, may be not the entire culture would be able to write. The people that could write are seen as a higher class, they would be seen as a man in harmony with the will and purpose of God. These calligraphers were often persons of high social standing such as princes, or statesmen. Having mental ability is seen as an important skill, which is equally important in creating an influential debate through the subject of religious rite and expressiveness.

According to Walter Ong writing had a number of extreme effects on social cultures. The ability of reading and writing produced many changes such as self-consciousness and the power of expression. The social cultures began to think for themselves and make their own opinions. With Oral transmission the society would believe what they heard, generally because they had no idea. When the Scribal culture was born people still believed what they were told, but compared to Oral cultures there were some differences. In a Scribal culture people that could read and write were extremely powerful and so these fortunate people had great control on the actions of the rest of society. Once the Typographical culture was founded it gave great education to everyone and helped everybody make there own decisions by understanding both sides of a story rather than being dominated.

It is the papers conclusion that with these new mediums becoming more popular the other three mediums are becoming lesser relied on. The Scribal culture has been replaced by the typographical culture, of which in turn is being replaced by Electronic and Wired cultures. One of the main re

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Approximate Word count = 1490
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)