David Koberstein
Member
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2025
- Messages
- 79
A Dimension of the momentous shift of our times is the communications revolution.
Our current digital revolution is certainly a cultural mega-shift. Communications theorists tell us
the world has experienced only three major communications eras. There have been only three
inventions that have served as hinges of history: (1) Writing and Reading, (2) Printing, (3) electronic media. The printing press changed the world and marked the end of the Middle Ages and opened a portal to the "Gutenberg Galaxy." The personal computer, made accessible to the masses, opened the portal to the "Digitoral Galaxy." Note also that the "Digitorality Era" has more similarities with the Orality Era than it does with the Textuality Era. This led Thomas Pettit to describe the Textuality Era as more of a "Gutenberg Parenthesis" a mere interruption in the broader art of human communication.
Our digital media culture has brought us back again to a more original orality. The new kinds of literacy needed for the digitorality era are in some ways closer to the orality era. The three communication eras are compared in the following Table (see attachment).
When media changes, people are changed by those media. A question many observers are asking is, will our dependence on this new media rewire our brains? Younger generations today, though literate, have been conditioned by the digital revolution to prefer to get their information not from reading print, but from other electronic media. This mentality is termed "secondary orality" and literacy theorist Walter Ong, a term he coined for the new electronically mediated culture of spoken, as contrasted with written, language. The new media advances secondary orality, and secondary orality in turn is decreasing print literacy. This is not an entirely happy development.
One thing seems clear and constant however. Humans are homo narrans. All humans are hardwired for story, as part of the Imago Dei within us. Story and storytelling will always matter. And it matters more in the "Digitoral Galaxy" than it did in the "Gutenberg Galaxy." Late modern people do not, will not read their printed Bibles as much as they read their smartphones. But they will engage with oral, face-to-face Bible storytelling, and through Facebook, YouTube and Ning. Mark Zuckerberg invented Facebook, so Samuel Chiang of the "International Orality Network" deftly termed the transition we are experiencing as
"From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg" (Chiang 2104:4).
It is of interest that Zuckerberg is Jewish. Jews, especially gifted in communication, have always been at the vortex of history-making movements and part of the intellectual and culture-change movements.
From Hebrew prophets and apostles, to journalists Theodore Herzl's envisioning and writing the Jewish State, to the modern building of the movie industry, Jewish people have been in the communications business and in the storytelling business. May the contemporary Messianic Jewish movement be at the vanguard, at the vortex, leading the way in creatively retelling God's master story to the masses!
The "People of the Book" are the "People of the Story."
Jeffrey Seif
Messianic Jewish Orthodoxy "The essence of Our Faith, History and Best Practices"
Our current digital revolution is certainly a cultural mega-shift. Communications theorists tell us
the world has experienced only three major communications eras. There have been only three
inventions that have served as hinges of history: (1) Writing and Reading, (2) Printing, (3) electronic media. The printing press changed the world and marked the end of the Middle Ages and opened a portal to the "Gutenberg Galaxy." The personal computer, made accessible to the masses, opened the portal to the "Digitoral Galaxy." Note also that the "Digitorality Era" has more similarities with the Orality Era than it does with the Textuality Era. This led Thomas Pettit to describe the Textuality Era as more of a "Gutenberg Parenthesis" a mere interruption in the broader art of human communication.
Our digital media culture has brought us back again to a more original orality. The new kinds of literacy needed for the digitorality era are in some ways closer to the orality era. The three communication eras are compared in the following Table (see attachment).
When media changes, people are changed by those media. A question many observers are asking is, will our dependence on this new media rewire our brains? Younger generations today, though literate, have been conditioned by the digital revolution to prefer to get their information not from reading print, but from other electronic media. This mentality is termed "secondary orality" and literacy theorist Walter Ong, a term he coined for the new electronically mediated culture of spoken, as contrasted with written, language. The new media advances secondary orality, and secondary orality in turn is decreasing print literacy. This is not an entirely happy development.
One thing seems clear and constant however. Humans are homo narrans. All humans are hardwired for story, as part of the Imago Dei within us. Story and storytelling will always matter. And it matters more in the "Digitoral Galaxy" than it did in the "Gutenberg Galaxy." Late modern people do not, will not read their printed Bibles as much as they read their smartphones. But they will engage with oral, face-to-face Bible storytelling, and through Facebook, YouTube and Ning. Mark Zuckerberg invented Facebook, so Samuel Chiang of the "International Orality Network" deftly termed the transition we are experiencing as
"From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg" (Chiang 2104:4).
It is of interest that Zuckerberg is Jewish. Jews, especially gifted in communication, have always been at the vortex of history-making movements and part of the intellectual and culture-change movements.
From Hebrew prophets and apostles, to journalists Theodore Herzl's envisioning and writing the Jewish State, to the modern building of the movie industry, Jewish people have been in the communications business and in the storytelling business. May the contemporary Messianic Jewish movement be at the vanguard, at the vortex, leading the way in creatively retelling God's master story to the masses!
The "People of the Book" are the "People of the Story."
Jeffrey Seif
Messianic Jewish Orthodoxy "The essence of Our Faith, History and Best Practices"
