Are most Star Wars characters illiterate?

Question

I just read an article titled Most Citizens of the Star Wars Galaxy are Probably Totally Illiterate (by Ryan Britt) in which the author states that because of holocrons, comm-links, and holographic communication that literacy (and subsequently journalism and fact preservation) are essentially nonexistant in the Star Wars universe.

From the article:

If you simply stick to the Star Wars films, there is no news media of any kind. Despite the fact that we see cameras circling around Queen/Senator Amidala in the Senate, they don’t seem to be actually feeding this information anywhere. Are they security cameras, like the ones that recorded Anakin killing little tiny Jedi kiddies? This theory achieves a little more weight when you consider that the conversation in The Phantom Menace Senate scene is all about how Queen Amidala can’t verify the existence of a coming invasion. She’s got no pictures, and stranger still, no reputable news source has even written about the blockade of Naboo. Even if we put forth that cameras in Star Wars are only for security and not for news, that still leaves the question of why there are no journalists. A possible answer: it’s because most people don’t read, which means that over time most people in this universe don’t ever learn to read.

Are there examples of reading and prevalent literacy in the expanded universe?

Answer 1

First of all, fact preservation is most certainly something that IS seen in TGFFA.

• Jedi Archives in G-canon

• Information archives (e.g. Zahn books have planet sized ones).

Second of all, Holonet was indeed partially a news service, among other things.

Third, this whole article is written from the point of view of self-overimportance of blathering chattering classes (e.g. people who make a living from producing words). In reality, TGFFA is probably no different from our modern day world:

• In poorer segments of society (Kessel), people barely have energy to survive, never mind read.

• In less "elite" segments of society, people mostly care to read Sunday's funnies and sports pages. And prefer movies and TV (or holographic equivalent thereof) to reading.

• Wonks and elites follow the news and stuff... and watching them diligently read TGFFA's equivalent of Druge Report or Puffington Host or some dead tree "news" paper does not, in any way, shape or or form, constitute something that an average movie viewer would find even remotely entertaining.

---

As far as Queen Amidala not being able to verify the invasion, that's because there is a blockade. How many news reports have you seen coming out of a fully blockaded planet (or island) that no newsman can land on?

Answer 2

Reading is not important for communication, the technology exists that would make it possible for the majority of the population to communicate with out ever having to read or write. Reading and writing are important for business and bureaucracy. There is plenty of both of those in Star Wars.

Hoever, there are journalists throughout the galaxy. During the Empire period they were severely curtailed but they existed even then, though — with the exception of those sanctioned by the Emperor — they were underground journalists. The journalists produce for shows on the Holonet as well as written news reports also distributed on the Holonet. Several novels feature journalists as catalysts or side characters that are part of the plotline.