Seeing "Pontypool" in a Speech and Orality Way
I would like to answer the first and fourth questions.
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 made a distinction between oral tradition and written tradition. In Pontypool, Grant Mazzy, a radio host, faced a large group of relatively stable communities - local audiences, and transmitted knowledge through oral language. Although it’s different from the traditional face-to-face speech, it still follows oral tradition, which is inheritly more flexible and humanistic than the written tradition and plays an important role in the transmission of knowledge and cultural values. Grant Mazzy in the film is well aware of its influence. Even before the virus started, he knew how to create a topic to attract the audience's attention. After he gradually discovered that cause of the virus, he began to use radio remind people to stop understanding words actively. Although behavior of the character has changed a lot, the nature of using orality to promote ideas has not changed. I think it’s a good reminder of us to think about the double sides of orality and speech. The flexibility of orality and the inflammatory of speech can also bring about some wrong knowledge if the speaker doesn’t lead well .
Using McLuhan's medium theory of the human sensorium as a framework, consider whether it is possible to argue that there something about speech as a medium and orality as communicative practice that creates the possibility of the 'language virus" that afflicts the anglophones in Pontypool?
By saying “the medium is the message”, McLuhan takes the media as extensions of senses, rather than just tools for conveying information, he believes altering how we perceive and interact with the world. Based on this, I do agree with the idea that it's the speech as medium and orality as communicative practice that creates the possibility of the “language virus” in Pontypool. The “language virus” in Pontypool is spread by the understanding of English words. And the radio, or I would say the speech by Grant Mazzy, changed audiences’ auditory experience by introducing sound, which not only increases the possibility of virus spread in terms of senses, but also enables the virus to spread more quickly and widely than interpersonal communication. In contrast, the spread of the virus would be super difficult in an isolated environment, such as if there were only written traditions.
Good post, I find the discussion of a language virus to be quite interesting. I think we can see this throughout society how language viruses spread. Gossip, fake news, rumors, legends, fables, etc are all things that could be considered language viruses. Pontypool explores how spoken language is a powerful method of transmission, especially due to its inherent radio space bias. Written language has the ability to spread further and last longer, yet spoken language holds a certain type of power that allows it to be instantly received and interpreted.
ReplyDeleteHi Yi, great post!
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a great point surrounding the inflammatory nature of speech when used in negative ways, I also made note of this in my post due to the stereotypical and ideological landscape of contemporary terms.
In relation to McLuhan's argument that the medium is the message, the oral nature of radio broadcasting has allowed for speech to be disseminated over farther distances and perceived differently than it would if it were to be communicated through cuneiform, for example. This argument also lends itself it to the commonality of language found in space bias media due to the universality of the technology and communication. For example, If the language virus were to be written in Quecha, the language of the Incan empire, only those with reading and writing proficiency would become infected. Due to the space bias of the medium and commonality of language the language virus was able to expand greatly within Pontypool.
Thanks for sharing
Hi Yi,
ReplyDeleteI thought I would take a moment to look at the blog again and your comments got me thinking about Innis medium theory again. A lot of us talk to our students in CS100 about this and it still remains relevant to our discussion of Pontypool. In the reading on the space and time bias, he talks about the space bias as something that can be fleeting, and constantly changing. I would say that the radio show is an example of this. It is safe to assume that it is also not a time biased medium for it is not "set in stone" to one say. Like Sara mentioned above the oral message that is being sent across the radio is set in space for a few moments and is heard in passing.