Questions for the article “Digital McLuhan”

 1. What are the differences between the pre-literate acoustic world and the alphabetical visual world? How does the media of television become a part of the acoustic world?

In the pre-literate acoustic world, information was able to accessed anywhere, however, in addition to this, in the alphabetical visual world, everything was given meaning and purpose. The media of television becomes a part of the acoustic world because it plays to our five senses – it is "musical, mythic and immersive while lacking a defined perspective."

 2. Why does the alphabet have the segregating tendencies? How exactly does the printing press reverse the segregating tendencies?

The alphabet itself is rather intricate and will obviously have segregating tendencies. The printing press altered the segregating tendencies by making things like printed articles and texts more available to the general public so everyone is able to gain more knowledge of the alphabet.

 3. How does the alphabetic communication in online communication make cyberspace acoustic? How is the online acoustic world different from the television, radio, or print acoustic world?

Alphabetic communication makes cyberspace acoustic due to its tendency to cover all different forms of communication. The online acoustic world also includes text which connects to all our senses. In the case of television acoustic, everything is closed and mostly visual aspects and graphics.

 4. Not only do we invent media and media technologies but also we select their uses in different contexts. What are the two selection criteria? According to the selection criteria, please discuss what will happen to our online communication in 20 years.

The two selection criteria are that "We want media to extend our communication beyond biological boundaries and we want media to recapture elements of that biological communication even though we have exceeded it in our extensions." Based off of this, we can infer that technology is ever-changing will continue to grow and advance twenty years from now.