So, what’s new this week? Not the eternal battle of “Old” restraining “New.” This time, though, Applen’s “The Age of Print and the Late Age of Print” and “Words on Pages and Screens” (pp. 12–22) in “Old Media, New Media, and Knowledge” take us to yet another discussion in which old perspectives criticize and, I dare to say, demonize newer ones. For this, Applen uses extracts of Birkerts and Ong to convey reasoning for how new media diminishes language and literature. For one, I am sick and tired.
Media and Remediation
Parting from Ong’s belief that “writing restructures consciousness” and Bolter and Applen’s definition of remediation as “the shift to a newer form of media that takes some of the characteristics of a previous form, but then refashions it.” And that “because the newer technology “remediates” the older one, there is an implicit assumption that the newer form improves it,” we can understand that repurposing, readapting, and remediating not only signifies a natural step towards the future, but it also means that the altered media it’s improving.I agreed with his perspectives while reading Applen’s works, The Age of Print and the Late Age of Print and Remediation. I followed his examples, which allowed me to see the content I often consume differently and how the concept of remediation influences it. However, I observed how all that informational connection fell through once Applen introduced the Birkerts counterpart and found his “reasoning compelling.”
The Future Works
Words on Pages and Screens in Applen’s “Old Media, New Media, and Knowledge,” utilizes many excerpts from previous Birkerts works to explore how “the quality of the prose we use will diminish significantly in a process he calls “language erosion”” by writing on digital screens instead of paper. “As opposed to using language that is unique and nuanced, we will have to live in what he calls “plainspeak,” where “Simply linguistic prefab is now the norm, while ambiguity, paradox, irony, subtlety, and wit are fast disappearing.””
Though my knowledge of Birkerts does not go further than his extracts in Applen’s work and a few Google searches, by his outlook and his precious need for extravagant word use to make himself “unique” and find self-worth as someone who struggled with identity; I find him a victim of his own limited knowledge of the future and how it works out while demonizing newer methods to produce and consume media as causes for “plain speak.” Birkerts and Applen assure plain speaking belittles language and make society members “cookie cutters” template copies instead of unique.
I, on the other hand, can argue that “plain speak” is not all that negative. Instead, it allows us to reach audiences that don’t count with the same language dexterity as a white cis-hetero American with financial stability and graduate education. Not using big, complex words doesn’t diminish language. It grants us the ability to convey a message simply and effectively to a modern audience that needs to be persuaded. More importantly, not using enigmatic words doesn’t make us less unique. We were never that unique in the first place.
Alone to be unique, Social to be plainspeaked?
Applen says that “Standing alone, quietly, away from frenetic interactions with others on the World Wide Web better enables us to figure out who we are and be unique,” but I couldn’t disagree more. As we are inherently social creatures, it is necessary for us to count on our interactions with others to figure out who we are. That’s why representation is so important in the scope of diversity and inclusion. Nothing is completely unique, as every part of ourselves results from collaborating with others. This is how cultures are made. In this case, only the shape of our bite and our digital prints are unique. However, our personalities, views, beliefs, feelings, likes, dislikes, and decisions are heavily influenced by others.
So, to answer Applen’s question, “How can we be unique if we are constantly interacting with others who deluge us with their thoughts and also know ours?” precisely like that! By interacting with others, one creates something unique. Think cultural experiences, music genres, broadening and diversifying perspectives, and more.
Besides expanding the scope of data and media one can consume, collaborating with others online is similar to collaborating in person. Applen asks, “Can an individual live outside the constant engagement in online communities?” Yes, the Amish community is an example. Nonetheless, it is important to note that though they live outside online communities; they are a very social community within themselves and are missing greater cultural aspects of human evolution due to their lack of online use.
WE make Worthy & Unique Media
So why wouldn’t we collaborate with others to make something greater? Why wouldn’t we part-take in online communities that help us broaden our horizons and visibility? Why shouldn’t we write on digital screens that make our creative process easier instead of doing all the work on one’s minds and only putting it on paper once, permanently? If we are social creatures in constant change, why make our works something different from what we are? The complexity of our words doesn’t determine one’s individuality, self-worth, or uniqueness; their cultural meaning does. The meaning and depth of what we say we find in collaboration with others, expanding our knowledge, not the other way around.
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