Blog Post 5 & 6

In the novel “Gutenberg Galaxy” I’d have to say that I found the entry “In antiquity and the Middle Ages reading was necessarily reading aloud” (page 94) excruciatingly interesting. To summarize and tell you what the text is about is quite difficult because there is so much emphasis placed on reading aloud. Basically what I gathered is the importance of reading aloud, the creation of reading from left to right, what the reader sees is not what he will hear. It also touches on that if the reader were without visual aids he would go back to reading aloud. The mention of the importance of ears (sound) and eyes (sight)!

In the novel “Gutenberg Galaxy” I’d have to say that I found the entry “The alphabet is an aggressive and militant absorber and transformer of cultures, as Harold Innis was the first to show” was an important overview of the alphabet system. The entry delved into the creation of the alphabet and sounds. The entry goes on to say that it was not just solely about the alphabet but the emphasis placed on sounds. There is an image of the “new 43-unit alphabet” which tries to make sense of the augmented Roman alphabet in Britain. There are letters placed in words that you look at and ask how they could have put them together.

The reading “The Technology and Society” by Raymond Williams, the period of decisive development in sound broadcasting was the 1920s. There was a major technical advancement in sound telegraphy which created a new for social definition. Originally, sound telegraphy was made for military purposes during the war. It talks about the crucial point where production was at its highest in the 1920s.

In “The Medium is the Message” by renowned author,Marshall McLuhan, he mentions “just before an airplane breaks the sound barrier, sound waves become visible on the wings of the plane. The sudden visibility of sound just as sound ends in an apt instance of the great pattern of being that reveals new and opposite forms just as the earlier forms reach their peak performances