Published Book or Work by:
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Learning in the Electronic Age: The Importance of Story Telling
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| Published by International Journal of the Book |
| Volume 1, 2003 |
| This paper discusses the significance of storytelling against the background of the evolution of language and in the light of the development of communication technologies. A model characterising the development of human communication and of language across the ages is proposed.
In the beginning, stories were painted on cave walls or told kinesthetically, with and through objects and rituals. Then, the spoken word took over. Skilled and highly respected individuals with seemingly prodigious memories roamed the world connecting people and communities through their story telling. More recently, as alphabets were invented and the scribes assumed pre-eminence, stories were written on whatever material technology could supply. The bards were confined to the stage and then to the cinema and TV.
The ability to write became commonplace and to be well read became the hallmark of an educated, nay a civilised person.
Despite the seeming prevalence of visual media, the printed word remains dominant. We consume almost twenty thousand times as much reading material as people did at the beginning of the printed book, in the Middle Ages. Ten billion books are produced each year .
Despite the appearance of great change, not much has changed, really, between the time of the scribe and the time of the printing press or of the e-book. Technology has made the written word cheaper to produce and cheaper to consume, but the creative process has remained largely unchanged.
This may not be so for much longer. It may be that the very nature of the creative process if being reshaped. A process that has been with us since our time in the caves is perhaps about to evolve into something new. There are straws blowing in the wind that presage that the times are changing, as a late 20th bard used to tell us.
Let us start by contemplating why change might be upon us and what that change might mean, by discussing the essence of what makes us human: culture.
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