A post-literate society is a hypothetical society in which
multimedia
Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradit ...
technology has advanced to the point where
literacy
Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, hum ...
, the ability to read or write, is no longer necessary or common. The term appears as early as 1962 in
Marshall McLuhan's ''
The Gutenberg Galaxy
''The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man'' is a 1962 book by Marshall McLuhan, in which the author analyzes the effects of mass media, especially the printing press, on European culture and human consciousness. It popularized the te ...
''. Many science-fiction societies are post-literate, as in
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury (; August 22, 1920June 5, 2012) was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of modes, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery fictio ...
's ''
Fahrenheit 451
''Fahrenheit 451'' is a 1953 dystopian novel by American writer Ray Bradbury. Often regarded as one of his best works, ''Fahrenheit 451'' presents an American society where books have been personified and outlawed and "firemen" burn any that ar ...
'',
Dan Simmons
Dan Simmons (born April 4, 1948) is an American science fiction and horror writer. He is the author of the Hyperion Cantos and the Ilium/Olympos cycles, among other works which span the science fiction, horror, and fantasy genres, sometimes wi ...
' novel ''
Ilium'', and
Gary Shteyngart
Gary Shteyngart (; born July 5, 1972) is a Soviet-born American writer. He is the author of five novels (including ''Absurdistan'' and '' Super Sad True Love Story'') and a memoir. Much of his work is satirical.
Early life
Born Igor Semyonovich ...
's ''
Super Sad True Love Story''.
A post-literate society would differ from contemporary or historical oral cultures, which do not deploy writing systems and whose aesthetic traditions take the form of
oral literature and
oral history, aided by art, dance, and singing). A post-literate society would have replaced the written word with recorded sounds (
CDs,
audiobook
An audiobook (or a talking book) is a recording of a book or other work being read out loud. A reading of the complete text is described as "unabridged", while readings of shorter versions are abridgements.
Spoken audio has been available in sc ...
s), broadcast spoken word and music (
radio
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...
), pictures (
JPEG) and moving images (
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
,
film,
MPG,
streaming video,
video game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
s,
virtual reality
Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), e ...
). A post-literate society might still include people who are
aliterate, who know how to read and write but choose not to. Most if not all people would be
media literate, multimedia literate,
visually literate, and
transliterate
Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or L ...
.
The nonfiction books ''
Amusing Ourselves to Death'' by
Neil Postman
Neil Postman (March 8, 1931 – October 5, 2003) was an American author, educator, media theorist and cultural critic, who eschewed digital technology, including personal computers, mobile devices, and cruise control in cars, and was critical o ...
and ''
Empire of Illusion'' by
Chris Hedges both observe a sudden rise of post-literate culture.
See also
*
Asemic writing
*
Cyberculture
Internet culture is a culture based on the many way people have used computer networks and their use for communication, entertainment, business, and recreation. Some features of Internet culture include online communities, gaming, and social medi ...
*
Daniel Bell
Daniel Bell (May 10, 1919 – January 25, 2011) was an American sociologist, writer, editor, and professor at Harvard University, best known for his contributions to the study of post-industrialism. He has been described as "one of the leading A ...
*
Post-industrial society
In sociology, the post-industrial society is the stage of society's development when the service sector generates more wealth than the manufacturing sector of the economy.
The term was originated by Alain Touraine and is closely related to si ...
References
Footnotes
Bibliography
The Dawn of the Post-literate Age by Patrick Tucker, THE FUTURIST Magazine, November–December 2009.
*''The Gutenberg Galaxy'', Marshall McLuhan, University of Toronto Press, 1962
*''Empire of Illusion'',
Chris Hedges, 2009,
Literacy
Science fiction themes
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