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\title{Modern Narrative Orality: Urban Legends, News, and Jokes}
\author{Matthew Gray}
\begin{document}
\maketitle
\section*{Introduction}

Typically, when ``media'' is discussed, the focus is on technological
media, such as the radio, television, films, and recently, software
and the World Wide Web.  Additionally, ``media'' is often equated with
``mass media'' because less well distributed media are less able to
have substantial cultural impact.  Television, for example, is
especially well equipped to very widely deliver a message that has a
substantial cultural impact.

\par

Before the existence of these technological innovations, the number of
media to choose from was far more restricted.  Printed media and oral
media still existed, however.  In modern culture, it has been argued,
because of the economic underpinnings of mass media, cultural
narratives have become almost entirely corporate property.  While
clearly a large amount of modern cultural narrative is generated and
owned by large corporations, particularly in the realm of television
and films, modern culture is not without narratives that are
communally owned.  These narratives are primarily transmitted via oral
media.

\section{A Definition of Oral Media}

Oral media here is taken to be somewhat different from how it would
typically defined.  It is modified to include all communication that
is typically done individual-to-individual, or
individual-to-small-group.  This is a very inclusive definition, and
includes phone calls, email, postal mail, newsletters, community
announcements, and any other communication where the people involved
know each other personally at some level.  This definition is not
meant to preclude oral media being a ``mass media'', it is merely not
{\it centralized} mass media.

\par

Given this broad definition of oral media, it is pertinent to ask what
the significant forms oral media takes in modern culture.  The
examples above of phone calls, email, postal mail, newsletters,
community announcements sound be expanded to include community
bulletin boards, water cooler chats at work, other conversation, small
scale performance, teaching, preaching, and most professional
relationships.

\section*{Content of Oral Media}

Oral media carries a wide range of content, ranging from gossip to
education to logistical information.  The three types of content
discussed here are ``Urban Legends'', News, and Jokes.

\par

Urban Legends (ULs) are perhaps the most generic of the three
categories, as narratives which spread orally.  Typically, they are
false, but not always.  They have many of the traditional features of
legends: moral lessons, humor, fear, variant.

\par

News has become utterly ubiquitous in society, to the point of there
being multiple television stations exclusively dedicated to news
content.  This fact has obscured the fact that much of news is still
transmitted orally.  In this context, news is meant to include the
speculation and opinions that surround discussion of the actual news
content.

\par

Jokes are the final form of oral content discussed here.  Jokes have
always been a primarily orally transmitted content, even in the
literal sense.  Television comedy has become one source of
transmission for jokes, but typically that is not actually jokes and
riddles, but situational comedy.  While jokes continue to be
transmitted largely verbally, email has become a popular mechanism for
the distribution of jokes, in the form of ``funny posts'' that make
their rounds on the Internet.

\par

Each of these forms are interrelated.  Urban Legends are often
originated as news or are based on news.  In many cases, urban
legends, either through people mistakenly believing them or through
the sheer magnitude of their propagation become news themselves.
Urban legends often take the form of jokes as well, and it has been
hypothesized that some urban legends got their beginnings as a
misinterpreted joke.  News, while infrequently making use of jokes in
the sense discussed here, is often the topic of jokes and a repeated
topic of humor.

\section*{Urban Legends}

The aforementioned narratives are commonly referred to as ``Urban
Legends''.  Urban Legends are typically transmitted via oral media.

\par

Urban Legends typically play to some strong emotion and often, but not
always, have some sort of moral message.  Usually, for successful
transmission, they appeal to some sense of ``public good''.

\section*{Craig, Mrs. Fields, and the Ankle Slashers}

Briefly, presented here are capsule descriptions of three fairly
widespread Urban Legends which will be discussed in more detail.

\par

{\bf Craig Shergold}.  Craig Shergold is a poor little British boy
dying of cancer and through the ``Make-A-Wish'' foundation has wished
to get in the Guiness Book of World Records for receiving the most Get
Well cards.  Please send him cards and make a little boy happy.\footnote{Entirely true, but incomplete.  See {\bf Impact of Oral Media} section for details}

\par

{\bf Mrs. Fields}.  A friend of a friend of mine was buying a bunch of
Mrs. Fields cookies, and asked the manager if it would be possible to
get the recipe.  He said no.  My friend then asked if she could {\it
buy} the recipe and was told ``Sure, for two fifty''.  She had him add
it to her bill and took her cookies and recipe home.  Upon receiving
her credit card bill, she found it was for over \$260 dollars, as she
had been charged \$250 for the recipe.  In retaliation for being duped,
she is distributing the recipe everywhere, and here it
is....\footnote{Entirely false}

\par

{\bf Ankle Slashers}.  In mall parking lots across America, a new type
of crime is occurring.  Young hoodlums will hide underneath cars in
parking lots, and when the shoppers return, the hoodlums will slash
their ankles from beneath the car, and steal their purchases and
sometimes their car.\footnote{Entirely false}

\section*{News}

Three recent news events will be focused on, and are summarized here.

\par

{\bf The OJ Simpson Trial} is perhaps one of the most extreme cases of
a news feeding frenzy in recent years.  OJ Simpson, football player,
actor, and hero to many people in the 30-40 age group, was accused of
murdering his ex-wife and her lover.  He was found not guilty in the
criminal trial, despite popular belief that he was, in fact, guilty.

\par

{\bf The TWA Flight 800 Disaster} was a recent air disaster when
flight 800 exploded south of Long Island, New York.  The cause for the
explosion is undetermined and the topic of extensive speculation.

\par

{\bf The Sheep Cloning} was a relatively straightforward bit of
science news that succeeded in hitting an emotional chord, sparking
extended, ongoing debate on the ethical implications.

\section*{Jokes}

While the topic of jokes is clearly vast, this paper will focus on two
sorts of riddles and one category of anecdotal humor.  They are
briefly described here.

\par

{\bf OJ Simpson Jokes} proliferated extensively during and after the
abovementioned trial.  They focused on the presumption he was guilty
contrasted with his fame.

\par

{\bf Blond Jokes} have manifested themselves in many forms.  They are
essentially generic ``stupid people'' jokes that are often applied to
ethnic groups instead of blonds.

\par

{\bf ``True'' Stories} are closely related to urban legends.  These
are comical anecdotes which are claimed to be true.  Sometimes it is
apparent that it is not true at the punch line, while other times, the
truth, or alleged truth adds to the humor.



\section*{Impact of Oral Media}

By the fact that each of these content types are transmitted orally,
they are subject to error and variation more than narratives that are
centrally distributed.  Variations on each of the above stories exist
in substantial variety.  For the Craig Shergold story, the boy's age
changes, the boy's name changes, and whether he wants get well, post,
or business cards changes.  For news stories, details are added,
removed, misinterpreted and exaggerated.  In the case of the Flight
800 disaster, speculation about the cause rapidly got restated as fact
in other contexts, and details were embellished often when they weren't
available.  Jokes constantly change, particularly Blond jokes, often
in target depending on what group is doing the disparaging and which
group is being targeted.

\par

Urban legends have the additional problem that because of the nature
of their transmission, these narratives, all of which typically are
reported as true, are very difficult to correct when errors are
realized.  In the latter two stories, these errors are relatively
harmless and merely add color to the story, and at worst, cause
misplaced emotions toward entities in the stories.  In the case of
Craig Shergold however, the inability to correct errors has caused
substantial problems.

\par

The true story of Craig Shergold is more or less as is related above,
but has the added features that the wish was made in 1989, Craig made
it into the Guiness Book in 1990, he received so much attention
through his wish, an American philanthropist payed for him to receive
medical treatment in the US, and was cured of his cancer in 1991.  The
mail, however, keeps coming, placing substantial burden on the local
Post Offices and the Make-a-Wish Foundation.  It is estimated Craig
has been sent in excess of 100 million cards, though official counting
ceased at 60 million.

\par

Often, corrections succeed in rapidly following the legends, lest
someone believe them true and take rash or inappropriate actions, but
the nature of the media makes it very difficult to do so under some
circumstances.

\par

News stories have the added issue of being very solidly based in fact,
yet due to their typically one directional way of being started,
speculation and misinterpretation run wild.

\par

Particularly in the case of sheep cloning case, where much of the
relevant content of the story is outside the knowledge and experience
of the average person, speculation and misinterpretation were rampant.
Widespread misunderstanding of what ``cloning'' actually is resulted
in popular discussion of ethical issues more disconnected from reality
than many realized.  Ethical statements propagated that would imply
that twins were ``unethical'', because they are in fact much like
clones would be.  Other more informed ethical issues were raised,
based on the speculation and claims that human cloning may now be
substantially more feasible.

\par

Jokes, unlike the other two forms, are hindered by inadvertent changes
or misinterpretations.  Legends and news tend to continue to
propagate, while jokes often fail to remain funny if they are modified
at all.  This causes jokes to remain relatively constant, or when they
change, to change either drastically or in altogether incidental
details.


\section*{Cultural Motivations}

Of the urban legends, each has its own reasons for propagation.
Spread of the Craig Shergold story seems substantially spurred by a
combination of compassion and a sense of being able to relatively
easily help in what in many ways seems like a helpless situation.  As
evidenced by the extent to which this legend has spread, it clearly
strikes a particular chord within society: A desire to help,
especially when it is easy.

\par

The Mrs. Fields story, on the other hand, appeals to a sense of
justice.  Specifically, it represents a sense of justice that succeeds
in vindicating the individual in the face of corporate giants.  Once
this justice has been served, the story propagates by the desire to
share this triumph, and in this case booty, in the form of the recipe.

\par

The ankle slashers story is somewhat less widespread than the others,
but is typical of a third brand of fear-motivated legends.  Other
often recognized legends in this same category include the ``laptop
thieves at airport security'' story, ``involuntary organ donation''
story, and the ``death by jeans shrinking in rain'' story.  The
motivation for distribution of these stories tends to be in the name
of enhanced public awareness.  In fact most of these stories are
entirely false, but the perception of needing to be warned of these
threats to our person, particularly in gruesome or otherwise extreme
ways, encourages propagation and highlights the specific nature of
some the fears society has.

\par

The cultural motivations for the oral transmission of news has long
been because it affects people's lives, directly.  For local news this
is clearly the case, but it is less so for national or global news.
The Cold War, however, changed that.  World events became of deep
individual importance.  A wrong turn in international relations could
result in death for the majority of humanity.  This motivation
extended to other forms of non-local news to the point where news can
be of interest even when it has a very tenuous impact on the reader's
life.

\par

Furthermore, knowledge of current events has become something of a
social badge of intelligence, or at least ``togetherness''.  The value
of this knowledge as a sheer social commodity has become substantial
in making news a truly oral media.  While it is natural to discuss
life threatening news in oral media, when it becomes a symbol of
social stature to discuss so, people are doubly motivated.

\par

The social motivation for the oral transmission of jokes is similar to
this last motivation for news.  Conveying humor, and hence displaying
wit, is almost universally considered a social virtue and strength.
Occasionally other motivations apply, including the desire to attack a
individual or group in a less direct way than they might otherwise, or
the desire to address an issue that cannot be addressed directly.

\par

Additionally, as in the case of OJ Simpson jokes, jokes can be used to
convey the dual social qualities of being well versed in current
events and being witty.

\section*{Technological Impact}

The urban legends are relatively modern, and hence seemingly less
subject to technological impact, they have in fact come at a time
where computer mediated oral communication is becoming widespread.

\par

The Craig Shergold legend, because its basis in fact is well
documented, is a case that can be tracked well.  The story began its
disemmination in 1989, and the actual request was no longer being sent
in 1990, and Craig was cured in 1991, all before the recent explosive
growth of computer mediated communication.  As people began to
populate the Internet, substantially driven by the web, new types of
oral media became available for distribution of these stories.

\par

The time line of these events identifies two important points.  First,
the legend of Craig Shergold spread quite well between 1989 and 1991
via oral media not dominated by email or other computer mediated
communication.  In fact, in this time over 10 million cards were
received.

\par

Second, the widespread use of email spread the story even further.
The Make-A-Wish foundation has an 800 number to handle questions about
Craig Shergold and noticed a roughly four-fold increase in call volume
in 1995, as the Internet craze had recently reached true popular
acceptance.\footnote{Additionally, there are web sites which fully
document the details of these legends, and attempt to dissuade their
dissemination, when harmful, as in the case of Craig Shergold}

\par

News has been strikingly subject to the impact of technology.  Obvious
is the technological improvements in mass media presentations of news,
but technology has also impacted its oral transmission.  With the
advent of trivial, instantaneous long distance communication, orality
has become again a way to transmit news often before it can be
received from the mass media.  Major news typically originates from a
mass media source, but is then transmitted orally to many people via
those readers/viewers.

\par

With the advent of Internet technologies, news has become discussed
orally through newsgroups and chat rooms in ways that were not
previously possible, such as live conversations between people spread
about the world, including some people who are actually at the site of
the news event itself.

\par

Jokes had not changed in many substantial ways with the growth of
technology, other than adapting their transmission to new oral forms,
until the advent of the Internet.

\par

With the Internet, an essentially new form of oral joke arose: the
``funny post''.  The one particular form discussed here are the
``True'' story posts.  These range from the ``Darwin Awards'', an
award given to a person who did the most amazingly stupid, funny and
fatal thing in a given year, the ``True Church Bulletin Quotes'',
which contains a variety of true church bulletin errors and amusing
contrasts, and the ``True Foreign Signs'' post, which contains
amusingly mangled English.

\section*{Conclusion}

Culturally owned narratives are still rather ubiquitous even in our
mass media society.  These narratives are often, however, not
recognized as such, but would not likely otherwise be spread.
Computer mediated communication is bringing new oral media into
popular use, in email, faxes, chat groups, and other discussion
forums.  Other oral media, however, are still widely and effectively
used in society to distribute culturally owned narratives.

\end{document}
