"Technology"
The spread of literacy led to the fixing of song texts - part of our work with source singers was asking them about songs they learned from print
The few that did said they hardly changed the songs - they were set texts - Tom Lenihan said he didn't trust 'the ballads' because "they never got them right' (you need to remember that people like Tom came from a living, very creative tradition) songs songs they already knew, much preferring to get them fro other singers (particularly the non- literate Travellers)
Literacy had the eventual effect of destroying the oral traditions because it did away with the need for them
Why should electronic communication - an extension of literacy, reverse the process, be considered another tradition ?
This seems like another researchers 'fad' to me
Jim Carroll