Alphabet effect

Abstract: This work is a study of this evolution of writing systems It describes the role the phonetic alphabet has played in the development of Western civilization Drawing a variety of conclusions about how societies advance, the author shows how the advent of mass communication and the use of computers affect how we communicate

Abstract: The alphabet effect that showed that codified law, alphabetic writing, monotheism, abstract science and deductive logic are interlinked, first proposed by McLuhan and Logan (1977), is revisited. Marshall and Eric McLuhan’s (1988) insight that alphabetic writing led to the separation of figure and ground and their interplay, as well as the emergence of visual space, are reviewed and shown to be two additional effects of the alphabet. We then identify more additional new components of the alphabet effect by demonstrating that alphabetic writing also gave rise to (1) Duality, and (2) reductionism or the linear sequential relationship of causes followed by effects. We then review McLuhan’s (1962) claim that electrically configured information reversed the dominance of visual space over acoustic space and led to the reversals of (1) cause and effect, and (2) figure and ground. We then demonstrate that General System Theory first formulated by Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1968), which also includes chaos theory, complexity theory and emergence (aka emergent dynamics) and Jakob von Uexkull’s (1926) notion of umwelt also entail the reversal of many aspects of the alphabet effect such as the reversals of (1) cause and effect, and (2) figure and ground.

Abstract: Table of Contents Forward Preface Part I The Media of Early Civilization The Earliest Precursor of Writing, Denise Schmandt-Besserat Media in Ancient Empires, Harold Innis Civilization Without Writing - The Incas and the Quipu, Marcia Ascher and Robert Ascher The Origin of Writing, Andrew Robinson Part II The Tradition of Western Literacy The Greek Legacy, Eric Havelock Writing and the Alphabet Effect, Robert K. Logan Writing Restructures Consciousness, Walter Ong Communication and Faith in the Middle Ages, James Burke and Robert Ornstein Part III The Print Revolution Paper and Block Printing - From China to Europe, Thomas F. Carter The Invention of Printing, Lewis Mumford Early Modern Literacies, Harvey J. Graff Sensationalism in Early Printed News, Mitchell Stephens Part IV Electricity Creates the Wired the World Time, Space and the Telegraph, James W. Carey The New Journalism, Michael Shudson The Telephone Takes Command, Claude S. Fischer Dream Worlds of Consumption, Rosalynd Williams Wireless World, Stephen Kern Part V Image and Sound Early Photojournalism, Ulrich Keller Inscribing Sound, Lisa Gittelman The Making of the Phonograph, Jonathan Sterne Early Motion Pictures, Daniel Czitrom Movies Talk, Scott Eyman Part VI Radio Days The Public Voice of Radio, John Durham Peters Early Radio, Susan J. Douglas The Golden Age of Programming, Christopher Sterling and John M. Kittross Orson Welles' War of the Worlds Broadcast, Paul Heyer Radio Voices, Michelle Hilmes Radio in the Television Age, Peter Fornatale and Joshua E. Mills Part VII TV Times Television Begins, William Boddy The New Languages, Edmund Carpenter Making Room for TV, Lynn Spigel From Turmoil to Tranquility in 1960s Television, Gary Edgarton Boob Tubes, Fans, and Addicts, Richard Butsch Part VIII New Media and Old in The Digital Age How Media Became New, Lev Manovich Popularizing the Internet, Janet Abbate The World Wide Web, Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin A Cultural History of Web 2.0, Alice E. Marwick Social Media Retweets History, Tom Standage Discussion Questions Suggested Readings