"Pontypool": Orality and Mediatization
How can we apply Innis’ understanding of orality and speech to the performance of Grant Mazzy, the host of the radio show in Pontypool?
Innis’ understanding of orality and speech can be applied to Mazzy’s role in contributing to an ‘oral culture’ in a mediatized world. As most communication networks are cut off amidst the chaos in Pontypool, and we as listeners are limited to hearing this story, we are required to rely on the spoken word. Mazzy’s character is forced to keep talking despite what is happening around him, using the very weapon that's fueling this apocalypse: the English language. The reliance on orality raises a critical discussion on its potential dangers as it speaks to Innis’ notion of oral traditions’ resistance to the emergence of “monopolies of knowledge”, as discussed in seminar. With this being said, Mazzy personifies Innis’ understanding of orality given his role in storytelling, oral variability, and trust in the spoken word.
Radio, telephone and electronic amplification play an important part in sustaining the virus. How can these medium(s) be understood as mediatized forms of orality?
Mazzy’s role is reliant on oral media which fits into Couldry and Hepp’s discussion about the changing of the social world when interwoven with media, constructing a mediatized society. In the example of Pontypool, oral media can be understood as a mediated form of orality, as radio and telephone avoid face-to-face communication and rely on a system that uses technology to communicate orally. In this instance, we can consider the interconnectedness of a mediatized society and the credibility granted to the radio host’s voice. An instance from 1938 titled the War of the Worlds presents a (potentially mythical) panic caused through radio. Fictionally depicting an alien invasion, this radio broadcast was made to seem real with sound effects and believable acting. Not only does this example depict the power of media, but in conjunction with Pontypool, we can see that influencing social thought can be dependent on one person’s voice. This flexibility that Innis discusses in the oral tradition can spread rapidly in a mediatized society.
Interesting how you have compared pontypool to War of the Worlds. While pontypool was real in the sense of a virus, what you call mythical panic in a mediatized society presents risks as well. Additionally one difference between how panic spread within the War of the Worlds broadcast to how oral narratives and messages spread today is that with an online world, nearly anyone can broadcast themselves. Podcasts, youtube channels, and more present individuals with the opportunities to orally communicate. Unlike with radio where there is only a select number of regulated institutions online podcast and radio platforms offer unlimited voices to spread and be heard regardless of geographic location or spectrum availability. AI presents an even more profound variable as today it is possible for voices to be imitated which can lead to messages being spread and taken at face value much quicker than before!
ReplyDeleteI agree with your statement that reliance on orality could lead to potential dangers. I remember us discussing about this in one of our classes as well where audio is considered to have more powerful effects than visuals. This is because audio leaves room for the imagination to run wild and free whereas in visuals we are shown images and that sort of limits our imagination. If we apply this understanding to the pontypool example, it is understandable that whatever we hear could cause us to imagine things which may not even necessarily be true. It may have the potential of blowing a situation out of proportion too.
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