This collection of essays, the outcome of an international research project by the University of Freiburg, the German Film Museum in Frankfurt, and an interdisciplinary research group for Media Studies at the University of Edinburgh, contributes new insights and analytical categories to the ongoing debate on orality and literacy, extending it to the realm of modern electronic media. Taking up ideas developed by such important critics as Benjamin, Parry, Lord, Ong, McLuhan, and the Russian Formalist Eikhenbaum, the essays suggest a new integrated approach to the study of presentational forms and media of communication from all ages of civilisation.