orality, reading, literacy, reception, media

Kateřina Smyčková analyses broadside ballads in terms of their media properties. According to Smyčková the formal features of broadside bal-lads place them closer to oral communication than to written or printed dissemination; the latter, printed characteristics of the genre made sung Czech broadside ballads more suitable to “intensive” reading, by which she designates the reading of a small number of texts. This kind of reception is based on repetition, listening, memorizing, and internalizing of the printed words. However, broadside ballads also played a key role in the development of “extensive” reading, by which term Smyčková refers to widespread and silent reading of a great number of texts by a broader but more erudite audience.