Communication media, memory, and social‐political change in Eric Havelock

Abstract

The classicist Eric Havelock is often viewed as one of the strongest proponents of the so‐called orality‐literacy theses. His work is foundational to the idea of media ecology. His most noteworthy contribution to the theory of media ecology, it is argued, is the manner in which he makes moral codes and communication codes inseparable through a theory of memory (echoing). That inseparability allows the linking of the psychological and social lifeworlds, i.e., the creation of social identity, and explains Plato's need to destroy traditional rhetoric and poetic.