Harold Innis and the Oral Tradition Essay Example

infinite number of subjects, readily available to any reader that seeks them.

Also defined in the written tradition, the Internet has the ability to spread quickly and reach a vast audience (Innis 80-81). The written tradition is a communicator of facts, including chronologies and important moments in history, and ignores ideas that become long-term, ethical issues (Innis 82-83). However, the plethora of information available limits the written tradition’s ability to achieve what the oral tradition can – the deeper, conceptual understanding of knowledge (Innis 94).

Websites like Wikipedia are consistently updated with the latest information, making it an excellent source for specific facts the reader wants to know at any moment in time. However, it is impossible for readers to read an article on physics and declare themselves engineers. It is the aspects of the Internet like these that demonstrate how the improvements of the written tradition have made intellectual understanding more difficult (Innis 94). In terms of the oral tradition, Innis believes that it is the interactivity between the teller and the audience that characterizes it from written tradition (117).

As a result, it is a difficult to conceptualize how the Internet acts as an oral communicator in addition to a written one, which it shares more similarities with. Contradictory to the written tradition, the oral tradition is a slow process that, together with its interactivity, allows for deeper meaning, understanding, and learning (Innis 123-124). This way of communicating would be different depending on who the communicator is and their personal use of gestures, tones and dramatizations (Innis 126). The popular website YouTube grasps a part of this concept through the

interactivity of its video (Frost).

Multiple how-to tutorials of do-it-yourself projects teach the audience to ultimately attain a better understanding of techniques that would be otherwise hard to master from a step-by-step instruction manual. Additionally, Skype has been able to mimic the conversation experienced by through the telephone, complete with the gestures, tones and dramatization that define the oral tradition (Innis 125). As a result, it is obvious that the Internet shares characteristics between both traditions defined within Innis’ theories.

Ultimately, Harold Innis would experience great difficulty if he lived to experience the age of the Internet. Based on his time – space theory, the oral and written traditions are master of time and space respectively (Innis 151-152). However, the knowledge within the Internet can easily exist throughout time as long as it exists and can transcend space and reach millions of people within seconds. As a result, the Internet cannot be classified as oral or written and is deserving of its own category. Evidently, Innis would proclaim the Internet a master of both time and space.