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Part I. Interdisciplinary Approach to Storytelling | 37
platforms integrate the functions of all the ICT tools of the 20" century and
allow for face-to-face chatting, voice and video calls, and the consumption
and sharing of verbal, visual, or audiovisual content as well as reactions to
such content. According to Szécsi (2016), the convergence of verbality and
literacy, characterized by the everyday use of traditional and new media
together, creates a third kind of verbality which combines and adds new
possibilities to the triple interface of the media belonging to the secondary
verbality (i-e., radio, television and telephone). This system constitutes the
new language of the network society.
Web 2.0 also represents an individualistic turn. While the technology still
allows for the transmission of mass media content, at the same time personal
narratives can be made public. Private content sharing has overshadowed the
professional selection of content by editorial elites, which on the one hand
promotes the exercise of individual freedom of expression, but on the other
hand, it makes access to quality and credible information difficult due to the
vast amount of data being created. Smartphones allow unlimited interpersonal
communication as well as access to and the sharing of content. In the world
of social media, there is a growing number of platforms specialized in the
sharing of images and videos, where users share their daily stories in the
form of an idealized image or a few seconds of video.
Meyrowitz (2003) considered that the emergence of a new kind of verbality
also affects social stratification. In the modern culture of print, the book is
the separating medium between the literate and those maintaining tribal
orality, those of the same status in society having access to similar knowledge.
In contrast, electronic media can be seen as an integrating medium, as they
equalize access to knowledge. A uniform information environment, according
to Meyrowitz, homogenizes society at the macro level and emphasizes the
individual at the micro level.
Komenczi (2009) presents two pessimistic viewpoints on the spread of
image-based communication. Postman (1992) calls image-dominated media
communication an iconic or graphic revolution. He expresses his concern
that images are slowly replacing language in representing the world and in
human cognition. McLuhan (1962) shares similar views, describing the natives
of the electronic media age as post-typographic people, whose mentality, he
says, resembles that of the tribal man, whose thinking is determined by the
pictorial.
Digital images, however, raise the problem that today’s recipients consume
rather than interpret images, using them according to their function. The
interpretation of images is neglected, as the recipient does not reflect on the
history, authenticity and context of the image, and ignores the fact that the
image is an index of reality, not a technological imprint (Belting, 2004). The
overuse of images is a process of fragmentation. The flood of images in Western
civilization serves to maintain the illusion of immortality and obscures true
meaning. Users believe they can take possession of accelerating time and