Folks, typically my participation on the blog consists of comments to your posts, but I wanted to write my own post to bear witness to some "loose threads" from our past couple of discussions.
For those of you still trying to figure out whether Ong's theory of “fictionalization” adds to or detracts from what you see as an inherent value to writing, you might take a look at a 2010 <TED talk> by David Byrne (musician and songwriter, turned cultural critic). The first 4 minutes of the talk echo the question about how much of the art depends on the venue, or on its architecture, where “architecture” is as much a perception and a realization as it is a physical or material structure. In a way, Byrne dispels the Romantic myth that “playing music to the crowd” is less passionate and less artful than “playing music for oneself.” In this way of thinking, even carefully masked or staged music can be artful because the mask or the stage is as much a construction of the audience as of the musician.
Showing posts with label Ong. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ong. Show all posts
September 10, 2012
September 9, 2012
Ong and Modern Technology
In the final pages of Ong's The Writer's Audience Is Always Fiction, he discussed the genres of the personal letter and the personal diary. He determines that in both cases, and especially so in that of the diary, the writer and the reader are fictionalized by the putting on of masks.
While the letter and the diary are still genres widely employed today, the introduction of various technologies has expanded our genres of communication. A modern version of the letter might be the text message and, similarly, a modern form of the diary would be a blog. How would Ong view these in terms of fictionalizing the writer and reader?
Ong writes: "First, you have no way of adjusting to the friend's real mood as you would be able to adjust in oral conversation" (19). Removed from context, this sounds very similar to the complaints imposed by the attackers of the text message, but Ong is in fact referring to the personal letter. These two genres of text have some differences which make their similarities more interesting. For example, a letter must traverse both time and space, but a text message can be sent virtually in an instant across a great distance. And while letters are conventionally formal with a certain length to them, text messages are notorious for their informality, both in tone and in grammar, as well as their brevity.
While the letter and the diary are still genres widely employed today, the introduction of various technologies has expanded our genres of communication. A modern version of the letter might be the text message and, similarly, a modern form of the diary would be a blog. How would Ong view these in terms of fictionalizing the writer and reader?
Ong writes: "First, you have no way of adjusting to the friend's real mood as you would be able to adjust in oral conversation" (19). Removed from context, this sounds very similar to the complaints imposed by the attackers of the text message, but Ong is in fact referring to the personal letter. These two genres of text have some differences which make their similarities more interesting. For example, a letter must traverse both time and space, but a text message can be sent virtually in an instant across a great distance. And while letters are conventionally formal with a certain length to them, text messages are notorious for their informality, both in tone and in grammar, as well as their brevity.