I think this applies to hearing as well

Ong talks a lot about how the reader has an important role in every text. He says, "A reader has to play the role in which the author has cast him" (12). In other words when we read a book, poem etc, there are certain constructs that we agree to accept (most of the time without even thinking) before we continue in the narrative or discussion. For example, when watching Star Wars, I accept that in this universe it's possible to move across space at the speed of light, odd and grotestque aliens speak perfect English, and large space stations have the capacity to destroy an entire planet among other things.

For Ong, these are the type of things that the reader accepts as they read, a narrator (who doesn't really exist and may or may not be human) tells us a story and we take his word for it. But that isn't the case in oral communication according to Ong, who says that that is a more collective activity. With this point, I disagree. Does not every member of that audience listen as an individual with unique perspectives as well? When President Obama, a priest or minister of any kind, or anyone for that matter speaks, do they really know everyone that will hear (or overhear) what they say? My point is I am rejecting this idea that oral and written transmission of ideas are so different. Yes, we don't know the narrator and technically he/she/it is not real, but often times those narrators have very human qualities and perspectives and they (at least in our minds) become real. Based on this theory of Metaphysics, I think Plato would say that if these characters are real in our mind (because we get to know them through the course of the narrative) then they are just as real as any orator.

All this to say, I think that Literature and Public Speaking are more related than Ong describes them in his article