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Communication HistoryMIT 2000f
04/21/23MIT2000 1
Course ContentO http://faculty.fims.uwo.ca/robinson/mit2000f/defa
ult.aspx
O SyllabusO Lecture slidesO Assignments
04/21/23MIT2000 2
Memory/Writing
04/21/23MIT2000 3
Writing to Present/Future Self
O “Grown Ups Read Things They Wrote as Kids” (Dan Misener, CBC Radio)
O https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyvUR1dCBbk
O “Personal Time Capsules”
04/21/23MIT2000 4
MemoryO http://www.youtu
be.com/watch?v=TNr_MiqCahE
O USA Memory Championship
04/21/23MIT2000 5
Memory Palace
04/21/23MIT2000 6
O Simonides of Ceos, 5thcentury BCO Banquet-Hall Collapse
O Memory PalaceO Childhood homes, etc.O Architectural Digest
O Spatial/VisualO Peter of Ravenna
Memory: Spatial, Visual
04/21/23MIT2000 7
O TerrainO Personal SpacesO FacesO Joshua Foer:
Moonwalking with Einstein
Epic poems of Rajasthan, India
1. Oral Tradition2. Bhopas3. Epic Poems
1. Mahabharata2. Dev Narayan3. Thousands of
stanzas long
04/21/23MIT2000 8
Bhopas/Oral Tradition
Memory Endurance of Epic
Poems Bhopas Sacred works Healing powers
Challenge to Oral Tradition Literacy Other media
04/21/23MIT2000 9
Oral Society (W. Ong)
1. Words as evanescent “events”1. Hebrew: “dabar”
(“word” and “event”)2. Power of spoken word
1. Language as mode of action
3. Interlocutor1. Memory/knowledge
4. Cognitive structure/way of thinking
04/21/23MIT2000 10
Oral Society and Recall1. How do spoken words become
memorable thoughts?2. Mnemonics and Formulas
1. Rhyme, proverb, alliteration2. “To error is human, to forgive is divine”
3. Serious thought requires memory systems
4. Experience intellectualized mnemonically
5. “Know what you can recall”
04/21/23MIT2000 11
Oral Tradition
1. Rich in metaphor 1. multi-sensory
2. Homer 1. illiterate2. 9th century BCE3. Iliad/Odyssey
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Oral Society
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O Jongleur (Middle Ages -itinerant minstrel)O Memorize hundreds
of lines of poems/texts
O Aide-memoires/ Rhyme
O Trained Memory/Worldly Mind
Theory/Orality/Harold Innis
1. theorist of communication/culture
2. historical relationship between society & technologies of communication
3. Time/Space
04/21/23MIT2000 14
Innis: Time-Biased Media
1. Orality2. Stone, Clay (durable
media)3. Community, continuity4. Practical knowledge5. Geographically confined
Griot (West African storyteller)
1. Repository of oral tradition
04/21/23MIT2000 15
Innis: Time-biased Media
1. Hierarchical social order
1. Theocentric
2. Vulnerable to “light” media challenge
04/21/23MIT2000 16
Innis: Space-Biased Media
1. Papyrus, paper, printing press, TV
2. Large capacity/less enduring
3. Administration1. territorial control
4. Cultural homogenization
04/21/23MIT2000 17
Innis: Space-Biased Media
5. Secular6. Commodification7. Monopolies of
Knowledge8. Weaken Tradition
“spatialize time”
04/21/23MIT2000 18
Innis: Orality
1. “my bias with oral tradition”
2. spirit of Greek civilization
1. dialogue, Socratic method
2. intellectual exchange
3. Inhibit tyranny4. Balance of Time-
Space Media04/21/23MIT2000 19
Innis/ “Grown ups Read Things…”
O Private, Personal Writings
O Elapsed TimeO Child to Adult
O Public “Live” Spoken ReadingO Communal Setting
O Community/Continuity
04/21/23MIT2000 20