As Ong says, in oral cultures originality is not the most important thing. What was original could not be remenbered as well as was familiar. Oral cultures used several oral tools to store information such as rythmic, balanced patterns, figures of speech and repetitions both of phrases and of sounds in words. For this reason we say that originality aggregative, such formulaic uses of lenguage to aid in the retention of knowledge, that way thoughts would not be lost.
Orality can be defined as thought and its verbal expression in societies where the technologies of literacy (especially writing and print) are unfamiliar to most of the population. The study of orality is closely allied to the study of oral tradition. However, it has broader implications, implicitly touching every aspect the economics, politics and institutional and human development of oral societies. The study of orality has important implications for international development, especially as it relates to the goal of eradicating poverty, as well as to the process of globalization.
The traditional definition of literacy is considered to be the ability to read and write, or the ability to use language to read, write, listen, and speak. In modern contexts, the word refers to reading and writing at a level adequate for communication, or at a level that lets one understand and communicate ideas in a literate society, so as to take part in that society. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has drafted the following definition: “Literacy is the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts. Literacy involves a continuum of learning to enable an individual to achieve his or her goals, to develop his or her knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in the wider society.”
Hypermedia is a term created by Ted Nelson, and used in his 1965 article Complex information processing: a file structure for the complex, the changing and the indeterminate. It is used as a logical extension of the term hypertext, in which graphics, audio, video, plain text and hyperlinks intertwine to create a generally non-linear medium of information. This contrasts with the broader term multimedia, which may be used to describe non-interactive linear presentations as well as hypermedia. Hypermedia should not be confused with hypergraphics or super-writing which is not a related subject.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermedia
