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 (literary theory), writing, Sound, audio, images, animations, or video, into a single presentation. T ...

technology has advanced to the point where

literacy Literacy is the ability to read and write, while illiteracy refers to an inability to read and write. Some researchers suggest that the study of "literacy" as a concept can be divided into two periods: the period before 1950, when literacy was ...

, the ability to read or write, is no longer necessary or common. The term appears as early as 1962 in

Marshall McLuhan Herbert Marshall McLuhan (, ; July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian philosopher whose work is among the cornerstones of the study of media studies, media theory. Raised in Winnipeg, McLuhan studied at the University of Manitoba a ...

's ''

The Gutenberg Galaxy ''The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man'' is a 1962 book by Marshall McLuhan, in which he analyzes the effects of mass media, especially the printing press, on European culture and human consciousness. It popularized the term ''glo ...

''. 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 genres, including fantasy, science fiction, Horror fiction, horr ...

's ''

Fahrenheit 451 ''Fahrenheit 451'' is a 1953 Dystopian fiction, dystopian novel by American writer Ray Bradbury. It presents a future American society where books have been outlawed and "firemen" Book burning, burn any that are found. The novel follows in the ...

'',

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 that span the science fiction, horror, and fantasy genres, sometimes ...

' novel '' Ilium'', and

Gary Shteyngart Gary Shteyngart ( ; born Igor Semyonovich Shteyngart on 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 ...

's '' Super Sad True Love Story''. While a post-literate society is often invoked in the sci-fi genre, the idea of a post-literate society is an issue of philosophical relevance as well, in regards to McLuhan's work and his Global Carnival Theory. 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 Oral literature, orature, or folk literature is a genre of literature that is spoken or sung in contrast to that which is written, though much oral literature has been transcribed. There is no standard definition, as anthropologists have used v ...

and

oral history Oral history is the collection and study of historical information from people, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people who pa ...

, 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 sch ...

s), broadcast spoken word and music (

radio Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...

), pictures (

JPEG JPEG ( , short for Joint Photographic Experts Group and sometimes retroactively referred to as JPEG 1) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degr ...

) and moving images (

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

film A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...

, MPG,

streaming video Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos, television shows and films digitally on request. These multimedia are accessed without a traditional video playback device and a typical static broadcasting ...

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a Simulation, simulated experience that employs 3D near-eye displays and pose tracking to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video gam ...

). 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 → and → the digraph , Cyrillic → , 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 and mobile devices, and was critical of the use of personal com ...

and '' Empire of Illusion'' by

Chris Hedges Christopher Lynn Hedges (born September 18, 1956) is an American journalist, author, commentator and Presbyterian minister. In his early career, Hedges worked as a freelance war correspondent in Central America for ''The Christian Science Monit ...

both observe a sudden rise of post-literate culture.

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'',

, 2009, Literacy Science fiction themes {{culture-stub

See also

References

Footnotes

Bibliography