Huzzah! Some thoughts about “Secondary Orality”!
Walter Ong states that secondary orality, created by electronic technology, is more deliberate and self conscious since it interacts with writing and print.
What exactly does he mean by that? Does he mean that people who use electronic devices to record their message are careful about what they say?
Since secondary orality is not completely oral, I think that people are forced to think about how their message will be received. The ability to have the message recorded in its entirety on different places in different forms may cause people to second guess what they say. Sort of like a post for a class discussion- where people have to think out something that has to be suitable/smart enough.
At least that’s what I figure from Ong’s sentence.
But then again there are people out there, who are unafraid to speak their mind and record their thoughts in blunt terms.
Are their messages deliberate? Probably. Well, they’re probably not all that self-conscious. Maybe they want to stand out as people who are unafraid and unwilling to censor their thoughts for the world.

