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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
