Understanding McLuhan/Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso/pc/mcluhan.dxr/07098_Field_TCUM T663.txt

Text File | 1996-04-10 | 1KB | 16 lines

close film is to book. Theoretically, there is no reason why the
camera should not be used to photograph complex groups of
items and events in dateline configurations, just as they are
presented on the page of a newspaper. Actually, poetry tends
to do this configuring or “bunching” more than prose.
Symbolist poetry has much in common with the mosaic of the
newspaper page, yet very few people can detach themselves
from uniform and connected space sufficiently to grasp
symbolist poems. Natives, on the other hand, who have very
little contact with phonetic literacy and lineal print, have to
learn to “see” photographs or film just as much as we have to
learn our letters. In fact, after having tried for years to teach
Africans their letters by film, John Wilson of London University’s
African Institute found it easier to teach them their letters as a
means to film literacy. For even when natives have learned to
“see” pictures, they cannot accept our ideas of time and space