This paper describes the unique development of media histories among developing peoples as compared to the western world's media development sequence from orality to literacy, print, film, and electronics. The fallacy of unilineal cultural evolution is presented, reviewed in terms of how it persists in current theories of media history, and then reconsidered from the standpoint of an Australian aboriginal (Warlpiri) society which does not write in any familiar way. A detailed analysis of Warlpiri graphics as a medium and the reasons for the resistance to print-based literacy in this culture are presented. In addition, the paper offers an analysis of the popularity and influences of modern day video and television among/on these aborigines, especially in terms of video viewing and production. A concluding statement suggests that: (1) Warlpiri aborigines have perhaps discovered some comfortable analogies between their experience of video production and viewing and their own traditional graphic system; (2) this new inscription process is proving more accessible and perhaps less culturally subversive to people in those remaining enclaves of oral tradition; and (3) it is likely that Warlpiri people will develop greater sophistication in European genres and the interpretation of imported narrative fiction which will bring them closer to European readings. (18 references). (CGD)