According to Jay David
Bolter, author of Writing
Space, we live in the "late age of print." This is, Bolter
asserts, print's last stage, its senescence if not its demise. In the
twilight of print's waning, he claims, we can now discern that the
printed text is only one, highly specialized case of writing, not its
norm and not its apotheosis. In the coming age of electronic texts,
Bolter argues, "print will no longer define the organization and
presentation of knowledge...." What will replace the printing press
and what Walter Ong calls "the
logic of print," is electronic textuality, a textuality with its own
"logic." "The shift to the computer," Bolter predicts, "does not mean
the end of literacy. What will be lost is not literacy itself, but the
literacy of print.... The computer," he asserts, "is simply the
technology by which literacy
will be carried into a new age"
.
Lanham
concurs.
Tuman demurs.
Postman decries.
OK, so these guys just generally don't see things the same way. What's at stake in this dispute, anyway?
This page is part of the article, "E-literacies: Politexts, Hypertexts and Other Cultural Formations in the Late Age of Print."