Media Ecology – (Un)Necessary Research Perspective in Communication and Media Studies
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Korzybski, Luhmann, and Mcluhan Lance Strate Fordham University, [email protected]
Fordham University Masthead Logo DigitalResearch@Fordham CMS Faculty Publications Communications and Media Studies 2010 Korzybski, Luhmann, and McLuhan Lance Strate Fordham University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://fordham.bepress.com/comm_facultypubs Part of the Communication Commons Recommended Citation Lance Strate (2010), Korzybski, Luhmann, and McLuhan, Proceedings of the Media Ecology Association, Volume 11, 2010. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Communications and Media Studies at DigitalResearch@Fordham. It has been accepted for inclusion in CMS Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalResearch@Fordham. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Proceedings of the Media Ecology Association, Volume 11, 2010 31 Korzybski, Luhmann, and McLuhan Lance Strate Fordham University [email protected] This paper revisits an earlier study of the common ground shared by Alfred Korzybski, founder of general semantics, and Marshall McLuhan, the central figure in media ecology, and makes explicit the use of systems theory to bridge the gap between the two. Following a brief summary of the systems approach and its relationship to the media ecology intellectual tradition, sociolo- gist Niklas Luhmann is identified as an appropriate mediator between Korzybski and McLuhan, for his application of the concept of autopoiesis to the study of society. Korzybski’s key term of abstracting is compared to McLuhan’s emphasis on medium, and suggests that McLuhan’s true concern was with a process of mediating rather than a medium as a thing. Korzybski only dis- cussed abstracting in quantitative terms, i.e., levels or orders of abstracting, but McLuhan’s ap- proach suggests the need to distinguish between qualitative differences as well, in the form of the mode of abstracting. -
Article Consumer Databases and The
Consumer Databases and the Commercial Article Mediation of Identity: a medium theory analysis Vincent Manzerolle Sandra Smeltzer University of Western Ontario, Canada. University of Western Ontario, Canada. [email protected] [email protected] Abstract This paper argues that the systemic nature of contemporary consumer surveillance undermines the most fundamental principle of free market economics: consumer sovereignty. Specifically, this paper argues that the rise of an information society in conjunction with neoliberal capitalism has entrenched routine forms of surveillance within commercial strategies by employing networked databases as a primary medium for the articulation of consumer sovereignty. The communicative relationship between consumers and producers within the market involves effectively ‘listening’ (and then responding) to consumer needs and wants in a timely manner. Surveillance is therefore not only necessary for the operation of globalized consumer capitalism, it is also the primary means by which consumers communicate their sovereignty within the marketplace. By turning to the work of Harold Innis and the intellectual tradition known as medium theory, this paper will theorize how consumer databases are used to circumvent the fundamental neutrality of the market, and thus sovereignty, of individual consumers by exploiting individual vulnerabilities through behaviour and profile modelling. Increasingly, vast amounts of personal information are in the hands of third party entities, creating what Innis calls monopolies of knowledge. Drawing on the example of Acxiom, a US-based data collection and management corporation, we highlight how the commercial mediation of identity has become progressively more hidden from view of the consumer and thus the need for greater regulation of this industry. Introduction Personal information is increasingly the basic fuel on which economic activity runs. -
Mcluhan Lecture
MediaTropes eJournal Vol I (2008): 19–41 ISSN 1913-6005 “AGENTS OF AGGRESSIVE ORDER”: LETTERS, HANDS, AND THE GRASPING POWER OF TEETH IN THE EARLY CANADIAN TORTURE NARRATIVE MONIQUE TSCHOFEN Introduction This paper brings together a most fascinating and under-examined body of early New World writing that belong to a genre of writing I call “the torture narrative” with the insights of Marshall McLuhan in order to offer a way of thinking about body parts, especially hands, teeth, tongues, and eyeballs, and their extensions through technologies such as alphabets, manuscripts, books, and weapons. At its core are questions about the nature and effects of the changes wrought by the early-Gutenberg era—a period characterized by vast scientific and technical discoveries, rising nationalisms, explorations, and conquests—in the New World. Rather than explore the ways an early New World print culture reflects or distorts discrete historical or ethnographic facts about colonial contact, I want to probe the ways the torture narrative speaks to the conditions of speaking and writing, and therefore to the discursive and textual production of the New World subject and New World space. My inquiry seeks to understand both the violence in, and the violence of, representation at founding historical moments, but its relevance far exceeds Renaissance or American studies. At stake in this discussion is an appreciation of a mode of intellectual inquiry that is attentive to the relationship between media technologies and the social worlds they reflect and transform. I. McLuhan’s Theories: Break-Boundaries and the Effects of Alphabetization Fascinated by turbulence, over-heating, explosions, implosions, and reversals, Marshall McLuhan is a thinker of boundaries, limits, and all modalities of transformation. -
Fitzgerald and Winseck.Docx
Media Economics: Missed Opportunities, Mischaracterizations Scott Fitzgerald, Curtin Business School, Curtin University, Perth, Australia Dwayne Winseck, School of Journalism and Communication/Institute of Political Economy, Carleton A heightened state of flux is now sweeping the media, creative, telecom and internet industries. In the United States Netflix recently, albeit briefly, surpassed Disney as the country’s largest media company by market capitalization. The just completed mega-merger between AT&T and Time Warner and another prospective one between Disney and 21st Century Fox (or potentially Comcast and 21st Century Fox) are presented as countering the threat posed by Netflix, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and Google to traditional film and TV businesses. Such developments highlight the issues of competition, market power, consumer welfare and industry evolution. In the latter context, visions of heightened competition, technical innovation and interactivity associated with digital distribution have been recurrent themes in industry analysis since before the US Telecommunications Act of 1996. Media Economics, by Stuart Cunningham, Terry Flew and Adam Swift (2015), takes up the challenge of grappling with new institutional actors and considers how audiences interact with and contribute to the emergent digital media ecology. These leading media studies scholars survey several different schools of thought useful to analysing media industries. They suggest that certain schools of heterodox economics - the ‘new’ institutionalism, evolutionary -
Mass Media and the Transformation of American Politics Kristine A
Marquette Law Review Volume 77 | Issue 2 Article 7 Mass Media and the Transformation of American Politics Kristine A. Oswald Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/mulr Part of the Law Commons Repository Citation Kristine A. Oswald, Mass Media and the Transformation of American Politics, 77 Marq. L. Rev. 385 (2009). Available at: http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/mulr/vol77/iss2/7 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Marquette Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Marquette Law Review by an authorized administrator of Marquette Law Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MASS MEDIA AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN POLITICS I. INTRODUCTION The importance of the mass media1 in today's society cannot be over- estimated. Especially in the arena of policy-making, the media's influ- ence has helped shape the development of American government. To more fully understand the political decision-making process in this coun- try it is necessary to understand the media's role in the performance of political officials and institutions. The significance of the media's influ- ence was expressed by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: "The Press has become the greatest power within Western countries, more powerful than the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary. One would then like to ask: '2 By what law has it been elected and to whom is it responsible?" The importance of the media's power and influence can only be fully appreciated through a complete understanding of who or what the media are. -
Lo Que Mcluhan No Predijo
Versión final revisada 1/10/2013 Lo que MacLuhan no predijo Coordinador: Eduardo Andrés Vizer ASAEC (Asoc. Argentina de Estudios Canadienses) 1 INDICE PRESENTACIÓN Eduardo Vizer PRÓLOGO. Una cuestión epistemológica Derrick de Kerckhove McLuhan, indispensable y complejo Octavio Islas 15 La caja de Pandora: tendencias y paradojas de las Tic Eduardo A. Vizer & Helenice Carvalho 32 La Actualidad de McLuhan para Pensar la Comunicación Digital Cosette Castro 48 Sujetos híbridos e historia no-lineal La continuidad de los media por otros medios Luis Baggiolini 56 Medios Sociales. ¿Herramienta de la revolución? André Lemos 65 Habitar. Revisitando el medio mcluhaniano. Sergio Roncallo 76 Twitter como medium mcluhaniano: el proceso de apropiación de los interactuantes en los medios sociales digitales Eugenia M. R. Barichello & Luciana M. Carvalho 87 Marshall McLuhan en el nuevo milenio. Notas para el abordaje de la relación entre cultura, tecnología y comunicación. Ricardo Diviani 97 Tecnologías y cine digital. Repensando a McLuhan en el siglo XXI. Susana Sel 106 Marshall McLuhan: Comentarios para una epistemología de la tecnología Sandra Valdettaro 119 Aproximaciones sobre la cultura libre y el acceso al conocimiento en la era digital Silvia L. Martínez 137 Emancipación digital y desarrollo local en el Brasil Gilson Schwartz 145 La influencia de Sigmund Freud en el pensamiento de Marshall McLuhan Adriana Braga & Robert K. Logan 158 2 McLuhan nunca previó la existencia de las redes sociales Bernard Dagenais 168 El ojo de dios: conectados y vigilados. Los medios como ecología del poder Eduardo A. Vizer & Helenice Carvalho 173 EPÍLOGO McLuhan, El último pensador genial de la era del fuego Hervé Fischer 188 3 PRESENTACIÓN Dada la amplia repercusión y los comentarios sumamente positivos que despertó la primera versión de este libro –en 4 idiomas diferentes-, debemos un reconocimiento especial a la ex editora de la Crujía (Silvia Quel) por insistir en una segunda publicación, totalmente en castellano. -
Media Ecology and Value Sensitive Design: a Combined Approach to Understanding the Biases of Media Technology
Proceedings of the Media Ecology Association, Volume 6, 2005 Media Ecology and Value Sensitive Design: A Combined Approach to Understanding the Biases of Media Technology Michael Zimmer New York University In recent years, a field known as value sensitive design has emerged to identify, understand, anticipate, and address the ethical and value biases of media and information technologies. Upon developing a dialectical model of how bias exists in technology, this paper makes a case for the dual relevance of value sensitive design to media ecology. I argue that bringing the two approaches together would be mutually beneficial, resulting in richer investigations into the biases in media technologies. Media Ecology and Value Sensitive Design: A Combined Approach to Understanding the Biases of Media Technology N his book Technopoly, Neil Postman (1992) remarked how “we are surrounded by the wondrous effects of machines and are encouraged to ignore the ideas embedded in them. I Which means we become blind to the ideological meaning of our technologies” (p. 94). It has been the goal of many scholars of media technology to remove these blinders and critically explore the ideological biases embedded within the material forms of media technologies. This endeavor forms the foundation of media ecology, an approach to studying media technology that Postman helped to establish. The goal of media ecological scholarship is to uncover and understand “how the form and inherent biases of communication media help create the environment . in which people symbolically construct the world they come to know and understand, as well as its social, economic, political, and cultural consequences” (Lum, 2000, p. -
The Interological Turn in Media Ecology
Conversation The Interological Turn in Media Ecology © Peter Zhang Grand Valley State University © Eric McLuhan Independent Scholar ABSTRACT This dialogue foregrounds the interological nature of media ecology as a style of exploration into the human condition. Besides Marshall McLuhan, it also brings Gilles Deleuze, field theory, and the I Ching, et cetera, to bear on media ecological inquiry. The idea is to reveal a pattern instead of defining a term. KEYWORDS Interology; Deleuze; Assemblage; McLuhan; Field theory; Leibniz; I Ching RÉSUMÉ Ce dialogue met en relief la nature « interologique » du style d’exploration de la condition humaine que propose l’écologie des médias. Pour ce faire, il fait intervenir, en plus des réflexions de Marshall McLuhan, la pensée de Gilles Deleuze, la théorie des champs et le « Livre des transformations » (Yi King). Il s’agit moins ici de définir un terme que de révéler un « motif » (pattern). MOTS CLÉS Interologie; Deleuze; Assemblage; McLuhan; Théorie des champs; Leibniz; Yi King Preamble This article is one among a series of dialogues on media ecology the authors have writ - ten since 2011. The idea is to play, probe, and provoke, while keeping from putting things to bed in a premature manner. Marshall McLuhan points out: “The future mas - ters of technology will have to be lighthearted and intelligent. The machine easily mas - ters the grim and the dumb.” 1 In the same vein, the authors believe playfulness is perhaps humanity’s best defense against the shaping power of its own prostheses. Over the past few years, the authors have been practicing fragmatics and interology in an intersubjective, intergenerational, and intercultural interval, first unwittingly and then self-consciously. -
THE NEW SCIENCE Marshall and Eric Mcluhan
laws of Media THE NEW SCIENCE Marshall and Eric McLUHAN University of Toronto Press Toronto Buffalo London 1 Contents Preface vii Introduction 3 Chapter 1 PROTEUS BOUND: The Genesis of Visual Space 13 PROTEUS BOUND: Visual Space in Use 22 PROTEUS UNBOUND: Pre-Euclidean Acoustic Space 32 PROTEUS UNBOUND: Post-Euclidean Acoustic Space - The Twentieth Century 39 Chapter 2 CULTURE AND COMMUNICATION. The Two Hemi• spheres 67 Chapter 3 LAWS OF MEDIA 93 Chapter 4 TETRADS 129 Chapter 5 MEDIA POETICS 215 Bibliography 241 Index of Tetrads 251 Preface Before you have gone very far in This book, you will have found many familiar themes and topics. Be assured: this is not just a rehashing of old fare dished up between new covers, but is genuinely new food for thought and meditation. This study began when the publisher asked my father to consider revising Understanding Media for a second edition. When he decided to start on a book, my father began by setting up some file folders - a dozen or two - and popping notes into them as fast as observations or discoveries, large or small, occurred to him. Often the notes would be on backs of envelopes or on scraps of paper and in his own special shorthand, sometimes a written or dictated paragraph or two, sometimes an advertisement or press clipping, sometimes just a passage, photocopied from a book, with notes in the margin, or even a copy of a letter just sent off to someone, for he would frequently use the letter as a conversational opportunity to develop or 'talk out' an idea in the hope that his correspon• dent would fire back some further ideas or criticism. -
Eric Mcluhan B
Eric McLuhan B. Sc. (Communication: Wisconsin State University, 1972) M. A., Ph. D. (English Literature: University of Dallas, 1980, 1982) An internationally-known lecturer on communication and media, Dr. McLuhan has over 30 years’ teaching experience in subjects ranging from high-speed reading techniques to English literature, media, and communication theory. He has taught at many colleges and universities in both the United States and Canada. He has published articles in magazines and professional journals since 1964 on media, perception, and literature. Editor of and contributor to The Idler. Co-author, with Marshall McLuhan and Kathryn (Hutchon) Kawasaki, of media text, City as Classroom (Irwin, 1977). Assisted Marshall McLuhan with research and writing of The Medium is the Massage, War and Peace in the Global Village, Culture is Our Business, From Cliché to Archetype, and Take Today: The Executive as Drop-Out. Co-author, with Marshall McLuhan, of Laws of Media: The New Science (University of Toronto Press, 1988). Co-editor of Essential McLuhan (Stoddart, 1995), and Who Was Marshall McLuhan? (1994; Stoddart, 1995). Author, The Role of Thunder in Finnegans Wake (University of Toronto Press, 1997), an interpretive study of Joyce’s magnum opus. Author, Electric Language: Understanding the Present (Stoddart, 1998). Editor, The Medium and the Light, a collection of Marshall McLuhan’s writings on religion and media (Stoddart, 1999). Editor of the academic journals, McLuhan Studies, and the Journal of Social and Biological Structures. Consulting editor, Voyager/Southam’s “McLuhan Project,” which produced (1997) a CD on Marshall McLuhan and his work. Editor, Understanding Media, Critical Edition (2003); McLuhan Unbound (2004); The Book of Probes (2004). -
Mcluhan, Marshall (1911-1980) Mcluhan, Eric (1941-)
MS Eric & Marshall McLuhan Papers, Laws of Media Coll 00657 Gift of Eric McLuhan, 2013. Creators: McLuhan, Marshall (1911-1980) McLuhan, Eric (1941-) Dates: [196-] – 1990 Physical extent: 34 boxes (3.7 metres) 2.9 linear metres of documents 38 colour slides 63 reel-to-reel audio tapes 2 audio cassettes 4 audio cds 18 video cassettes 2 16mm film reels, approx. 1 metre, and 75 metres in length Biographical Note: Herbert Marshall McLuhan was born in Edmonton, Alberta on 21 July 1911 to Herbert Ernest McLuhan, a salesman, and Elsie Naomi (Hall) McLuhan, an actress and monologist. The family moved to Winnipeg, where McLuhan attended the University of Manitoba from 1929 to 1934, receiving a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts in English literature. After teaching English at various American universities, McLuhan returned to Canada in 1944 to teach at Assumption College in Windsor. From 1946 until shortly before his death, he taught English at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto. In 1963, McLuhan became the director of the University of Toronto's newly-established Centre for Culture and Technology. The Centre conducted research on questions of sensory perception and other communications-related issues and offered academic courses. McLuhan's books include the following: The Mechanical Bride (1951); The Gutenberg Galaxy: (1962), for which he was awarded the Governor General's prize for critical prose; Understanding Media (1964); The Medium is the Massage (1967, with Quentin Fiore); War and Peace in the Global Village (1968, with Quentin Fiore); Through the Vanishing Point (1968, with Harley Parker); Counterblast (1969, with Harley Parker); Culture is Our Business (1970); From Cliché to Archetype (1970 with Wilfred Watson); Take Today (1972 , with Barrington Nevitt); and The City as Classroom (1977, with Eric McLuhan and Kathryn Hutchon. -
A Media Ecology Analysis of Digital Teen Sexuality and Sexting Education
Illinois State University ISU ReD: Research and eData Theses and Dissertations 3-25-2020 "It Doesn't Seem Like a Big Deal": A Media Ecology Analysis of Digital Teen Sexuality and Sexting Education Allison Marie Metz Illinois State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/etd Part of the Communication Commons Recommended Citation Metz, Allison Marie, ""It Doesn't Seem Like a Big Deal": A Media Ecology Analysis of Digital Teen Sexuality and Sexting Education" (2020). Theses and Dissertations. 1225. https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/etd/1225 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ISU ReD: Research and eData. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ISU ReD: Research and eData. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “IT DOESN’T SEEM LIKE A BIG DEAL”: A MEDIA ECOLOGY ANALYSIS OF DIGITAL TEEN SEXUALITY AND SEXTING EDUCATION ALLISON MARIE METZ 100 pages In the state of Illinois, any person in possession of sexually explicit photos of a minor, even if the subject is oneself, can be prosecuted as a felon for possession of child pornography and be required to registered as a sex-offender (705 ILCS § 405). Concurrently, the recent trend of ‘send nudes’ depicts humorous ways to request the transmission of sexually explicit photos, increasing this act as a normative practice for young people (Bradford, 2018; Thomas, 2017). This trend is incongruent with Illinois statue (705 ILCS § 405) and school administrative policy about transmitting sexually explicit photos of a minor.