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From: sp299-ad@violet.berkeley.edu (Celso Alvarez)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,comp.cog-eng,sci.psychology
Subject: Re: Effects of poor writing? (Long)
Message-ID: <23871@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 1 May 89 23:13:42 GMT
References: <39131@bbn.COM> <1982@trantor.harris-atd.com> <2947@tank.uchicago.edu> <2970@tank.uchicago.edu> <357@itcatl.UUCP> <2000@trantor.harris-atd.com>
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In article <2000@trantor.harris-atd.com> chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com
(Chuck Musciano) writes:
>>	I think traditional "literacy" is falling more and more by the wayside 
>>as it becomes less important to human communication. . .
>>. . .  The industrial revolution made literacy a prerequisite for
>>success, the information revolution just beginning may well make literacy
>>unneeded again.

In article <357@itcatl.UUCP> jonathan@itcatl.UUCP
(Jonathan Peterson) replies:
>     This is certainly a horrifying view of the future!  . . .
>. . .  Literacy is really a cornerstone of freedom.

Literacy is a double-edged sword.  If even now we are able to see the
effects of the unequal distribution of (written) knowledge through the
educational system, just imagine a society where this knowledge is
primarily distributed through the electronic media.  The key question
is that of the access to such knowledge, either via what C.M.
calls `traditional literacy', or via the electronic media or
audiovisual channels.  While literate people can, through writing,
transform experience and, in a way, not only receive knowledge, but
also produce it, our control of the audiovisual media is practically
non-existent.

The interpretation of visual messages also requires some sort of
literacy.  But the majority of the people are visually illiterate, that
is, untrained in the interpretation of visual messages which are, more
often than not, texts constructed through selective manipulation of
fragments of events (I'm thinking particularly about news reports
or interviews).  While in a written text elliptical material is usually
represented by (. . .) or similar conventions, on TV events are ordered
and presented without regard for the actual structure of the
actions/events/words reported.  And dealing with the written text
involves both reading and writing, whereas dealing with mass-media
images usually only involves the passive activity of watching.

Written literacy still has a role in the future -- not one of freedom,
though I would like to believe so, but one of social selection.  It is
possible that basic literacy continues to expand socially through the
educational system.  But it is also possible (and, perhaps, it is
already a visible trend) that the production and control of written
knowledge becomes more and more concentrated in the hands of reduced
elites, while the overwhelming majority of the population continues to
be primarily -- and passively -- informed or misinformed through visual
channels, thus contributing to the illusion of `a new kind of
literacy'.

Celso Alvarez
sp299-ad@violet.berkeley.edu