Podcast Summary: "The Media Theory That Explains '99% of Everything'"

Plain English with Derek Thompson | The Ringer
Guest: Joe Wiesenthal (Bloomberg writer, podcaster)
Release Date: February 17, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode explores a sweeping theory about media, technology, and how humans communicate—drawing from Walter Ong's influential work on "orality and literacy." Derek Thompson and guest Joe Wiesenthal trace the evolution of communication from oral cultures, to the rise of literacy, to today's fast-shifting, digital, and "post-literate" environment. They discuss how this transformation is changing not only the way we talk, but how we think, learn, relate, trust, and build society—from politics (think: Trump’s Homeric nicknames) to AI’s effect on our mental lives.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Orality, Literacy, and Media Theory—The Historical Arc

• Ted Chiang’s “The Truth of Feeling” (01:16): Derek opens with a powerful analogy from Chiang’s sci-fi story, juxtaposing perfect memory technology with the technological revolution of writing, referencing Walter Ong.
• Walter Ong’s Thesis: Literacy is not just a skill; it's a consciousness-altering technology. It enables abstraction, complex argumentation, and the development of complex institutions. (03:40)
  • Quote, Derek (03:38):
    "Ong's argument in that book is simple but radical. Literacy isn't just a skill you learn in school. It's a technology that rewires your mind and your consciousness."

2. The Return to Orality – Digital Age Parallels

• Wiesenthal’s Central Thesis (06:40):
  • Human communication is reverting towards orality—but in digitized, sped up, and less social ways.
  • The internet mimics the back-and-forth, rhythmic, viral qualities of oral, pre-literate communication.
  • Viral tweets, memes, rapid-fire conversations, and social media snark resemble the mnemonic and interactive nature of stories in oral traditions.
  • Quote, Joe (06:40):
    "I believe that human communication is becoming more oral...in general, whether in the sort of spoken form or in the digital form, particularly online, has the characteristics of conversation."
• Communication for Memorability: Social media content is optimized for memory and virality, akin to how rhyme, repetition, and rhythm made oral traditions memorable. (08:23)

3. From Social Learning to Solitude—and Back Again

• Learning in Oral vs. Literate Societies:
  • “Study” once meant apprenticeship and repetition (oral); literacy allowed for solitary, introspective learning.
  • Literacy is the foundation for privacy, introspection, and abstraction in thought—creating the modern 'interior self'. (20:34–22:15)
  • Quote, Walter Ong via Derek (20:52):
    "Human beings in primary oral cultures do not study. They learn by apprenticeship...by listening, by repeating what they hear, by mastering proverbs and ways of combining and recombining them, but not study in the strict sense."
• The 'Antisocial Century': Derek posits we're spending more time alone due to shifts enabled by literacy, impacting society broadly. (21:38)

4. Mechanics & Metaphysics: The Ear, the Eye, and the Internet

• Metaphor Explained: Books are 'the age of the eye'—perspective, distance, and solitude; the internet is 'the age of the ear'—immersive, enveloping, ever-present, and communal. (26:03)
  • Quote, Derek (26:03):
    "The idea that a book is an eye and the Internet is an ear is a very interesting way to think about it."
• Digital Orality: We are in a phase Wiesenthal calls "digital orality," where short-form video, podcasts, and TikTok blend orality's conversational nature with the permanence of recorded media. (27:18)
  • Quote, Joe (27:18):
    "He calls it Digital Orality, which I really like...right now, you see a screenshot, you see a record, you can more or less trust it. But I don't think obviously that's going to be the case 10 years from now..."
• AI & the Fluidity of History: With generative AI, even our digital records/history are becoming increasingly malleable—less stable than printed archives, echoing oral cultures where the past could be rewritten. (29:52)

5. The End of Reading? The Rise of Viral Video

• Post-literacy: Reading rates and attention spans are in decline. All media trends—news, podcasts, tweets, even books—are converging toward short-form video, a “televisual attractor state.” (30:43–33:45)
  • Quote, Derek (30:43):
    "It sometimes feels like everything is trying to become television. Here we are...talking on something that people will watch on YouTube or Spotify. Social media is becoming TV, podcasts are becoming TV. People are going to the movies less..."
• Viralness Trumps Depth: The new primacy of “talk” and "shareability" echoes back to ancient virality of oral storytelling.

6. Politics: Trump and the Return of the 'Heavy Character'

• Trump’s Homeric Style:
  • Trump’s knack for nicknames (e.g. Sleepy Joe, Crooked Hillary) channels the mnemonic, repetitive, and formulaic patterns found in oral traditions ("swift-footed Achilles"). (36:35–38:29)
  • “Heavy characters” dominate in oral eras—larger-than-life, easily memorizable. Politicians today (Trump, Musk, YouTube stars) fit this mold, contrasting “light characters” (JFK, Obama) from literate ages.
  • Quote, Joe (39:43):
    "We are in the time of the heavy character...whether you like the way they look or don't you remember how they look."
• Meyerowitz’s ‘No Sense of Place’:
  • The collapse of front-stage/backstage—digital media removes situational context, creating skepticism toward anyone who presents differently in different environments, fostering a preference for public figures who are “authentic” everywhere (e.g. Trump). (43:20–45:50)

7. Hierarchy, Expertise, and Social Unrest

• Media Flattening Hierarchies:
  • Electronic media erases “sense of place,” both spatial and hierarchical. Now, “the poor can scream at billionaires,” leading to both social unrest and a distrust of experts.
  • Quote, Meyerowitz via Derek (48:23):
    “Our increasingly complex technological and social world has made us rely more and more heavily on expert information. But the general exposure of experts as fallible human beings has lessened our faith in them as people...”
• Technology’s Double-Edged Sword: Good and bad consequences intermingle, and this new, rawer egalitarianism is not “ideologically comfortable” for any side. (50:45)

8. AI: The Revenge of Literacy?

• Conversational Text—A New Synthesis:
  • AI (like chatbots) allows us to converse with texts, blurring the line between oral and literate modes.
  • Yet, unlike social media, AI is not “agonistic”—it doesn’t compete or try to impress, it’s obsequious, undemanding.
  • Quote, Joe (54:55):
    "Those conversations with AI, they don't feel like other conversations...AI is not trying to impress you, typically...AI chatbot communications aren't agonistically toned."
• Might AI Reintroduce Solitude/Interiority?
  • Derek proposes that talking to AI feels like “interior dialogue” or daydreaming—a solitary, introspective act more akin to literate absorption than oral back-and-forth. (57:42)
  • Joe agrees: AI could enable a "secondary literacy," allowing a kind of digital solitude within a noisy, oral world. (59:22–60:51)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Internet as an ‘Ear’
  • Derek (26:03): "A book is an eye and the Internet is an ear."
• On Trump & Homeric Nicknames
  • Derek (36:35): "Fortunately for our purposes, Wikipedia keeps track of all of Donald Trump’s nicknames..."
  • Joe (39:43): "We are in the time of the heavy character...visuals that just stick in your head..."
• On AI & Agonism
  • Joe (54:55): "The AI is not trying to one up you. The AI is not going to insult you. The AI is not going to use epithetical phrases...Most people's complaint with AI is that it's too obsequious, that it's not confrontational enough."
• On Expertise & Trust
  • Meyerowitz via Derek (48:23): "A distrust of power, but also with a seemingly powerless dependence on those in whom we have little trust."
• On Old Media Theorists’ Foresight
  • Joe (60:59): "What I would just say is there's a lot of writing that I think helps answer these questions that was written before any of this existed. And I find that to be very powerful..."

Important Timestamps

• 01:16 Opening story: Ted Chiang, memory tech & writing
• 06:15–09:43 Joe Wiesenthal lays out his orality thesis
• 13:42 Impact of literacy on thinking & institutions
• 20:34 Literacy’s role in enabling solitude and interiority
• 26:03 The metaphor: book as ‘eye’, Internet as ‘ear’
• 27:18–30:43 Digital orality, AI, and malleability of history
• 36:35–39:43 Politics and the oral tradition: Trump’s nicknames, mythic ‘heavy’ characters
• 43:20–50:45 No Sense of Place, hierarchy, authenticity, and expertise
• 53:28–60:51 AI, its oral/literate duality, and “secondary literacy”

Conclusion

This episode is a fascinating, often mind-bending journey through media theory, history, and the present-day digital landscape. Derek and Joe weave together ancient epics, Enlightenment-era thought, memes, tweets, the television, TikTok, politics, and the rise of AI to argue: how we communicate shapes how we think, and the latest technological turn may be changing us more radically than we realize.

For Further Exploration:

• Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy
• Maryrowitz, No Sense of Place
• Ted Chiang, Exhalation (especially “The Truth of Feeling”)
• Eric Havelock on Plato and the transition from oral to literate thought

“The world we live in today is built on a foundation, which is the culture of literacy—and it's a foundation that some people think is disappearing under our feet.” – Derek Thompson (05:48)

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