Explorations in Media Ecology - Volume 19, Issue 4, 2020

Contemporary life has made us aware of the fact that we live in an age defined by technology. The different ways in which we can think and question our time are tightly related to our own technical possibilities to name, represent and preserve the present. However, this situation is often opaque and mysterious to us, because it hides the mediatic condition of its own construction. To explore this represented present as ‘actuality’, following Jacques Derrida neologisms of ‘artifactuality’ and ‘actuvirtuality’, allows us to clarify its own technological and, therefore, mediatic nature. To do so, this article explores the narcotic quality of the media, as described by Marshall McLuhan in his book Understanding Media, and the possibility implied in the encounter of two media of counteracting its numbing effects, in order to propose new ways to respond and become responsible for the media construction of our time and the present.

Digital technologies continue to shape nearly every facet of our lives in ways both seen and unseen. Given their systemic (i.e. environmental) nature and the rate at which their impacts emerge, anti-environments are needed to provide the kind of conscious awareness that Marshall McLuhan and subsequent others have called for. Towards this end, I introduce the PRIME model, which represents five key biases that emerge and/or are heightened within the digital environment. Ultimately, I argue that awareness of these biases and their effects can aid us in cultivating more constructive data habits at the social, cultural and political levels that serve, rather than subvert, humane and equitable ends.

This article applies Daniel Boorstin’s notion of the pseudo-event to the ascendency of President Donald Trump. Boorstin defines the pseudo-event as an event staged to call attention to itself, a phenomenon made possible by the graphic revolution. As early as 1961, Boorstin recognized this phenomenon in the areas of travel, news and politics. Concerning the latter, the hero, a person once recognized for his achievements, has been replaced by the celebrity, a person known for his well-knownness. While Davy Crockett was a precursor of the American celebrity politician, P. T. Barnum and Edward Bernays were practitioners of the pseudo-event par excellence. Donald Trump, however, exemplifies the human pseudo-event in a most tragic way because his persona is emblematic of what some observers now perceive as the fly-in-the-ointment of American liberal democracy – the unrestrained autonomous self, something to which our original political commitments ensure us can be liberated from nature, time and place. In our quest to realize ‘liberty’ for ourselves, older and more localized ethical restraints had to be cast aside. Ironically, the crisis of liberalism resides in its great success.

In light of surging cross-disciplinary interest in rethinking the conceptions of attention and attention economy, this article conducts an archaeology of Marshall McLuhan’s concepts in order to construct a theory of attention implicit in his media paradigm. McLuhan’s most attentional concepts are explained (such as figure/ground and cliché/archetype) and synthesized into an integrated account of his idea of attention, which I call ‘eco-formed attention’. It contrasts with reigning individualist and collectivist theories of attention by being constitutive, modal, dialectical, environmental and negative-inclusive. I argue that McLuhan’s fundamental problematic of attention – concepts mismatching percepts – is solved by using eco-formed attention to become a ‘media psychonaut’. Four procedures are explained to illustrate psychonautic interventions in eco-formed attention. This project is useful for media-ecological analyses, creative re-engagement with media, and reforming attention within future technological changes. The article concludes by linking to several agendas in media ecology and across the humanities.

In this probe, I seek to analyse the characteristics and tendencies of virtual groups, which I define as any group of people that are connected in a decentralized and persistent manner, via the internet or cellular networks. By analysing two dimensions that shape virtual groups – their size and their velocity of communication – we can understand some intrinsic environments that are formed, by nature of the medium itself. The velocity of a platform can be understood as how quickly ideas are transferred and a response is expected – consider reading a forum post versus participating in a video chat. Slow-velocity mediums, by nature of the eye, tend to promote an individualistic view and refined thoughts. High-velocity mediums, corresponding to the ear and occurring in real time, promote more unity and collective views. The second dimension (the size or openness of a platform) is determined both by how many members are in the group, but also by how access is controlled. Small and private groups, like a close-knit tribe, function as a whole and promote familial harmony. Large or public groups struggle to maintain a collective vision but benefit from a wide variety of view points. By analysing these dimensions together and looking at specific examples, we can strive to understand deep-seated issues within virtual groups and make predictions for what the future of decentralized gatherings will look like.

The article argues that the ecological approach can offer a viewpoint that comprises more educational complexity. If we accept that the observer and object of observation are in a constant relationship, that technology, context and culture are constituting forces of knowledge production, and that theory/practice is another binary divide to overcome, we are forced to address the intertwined emergence of teaching and learning as part of a co-evolutionary process. As part of ecological pedagogy, communication choices focus on feedback, interconnectedness and in-between-ness among living and non-living organisms. By drawing from the encounter between the complex perspective of Gregory Bateson and the thinking of media ecologist Marshall McLuhan, this article focuses on communication choices in teaching. It presents a comparative study on one-to-one programmes in schools in Italy and Brazil and shows the importance of existing connections and communicative exchanges between the elements of a dynamic system.

Review of: Slow Media: Why Slow Is Satisfying, Sustainable, and Smart, Jennifer Rauch (2018)

New York: Oxford University Press, 208 pp.,

ISBN 978-0-19064-1-795, p/bk, $34.95

Review of: Not So Fast: Thinking Twice about Technology, Doug Hill (2016)

Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 240 pp.,

ISBN-13 978-0820355498, h/bk, $22.19; p/bk, $16.73; eTextbook, $18.95