Explorations in Media Ecology - Volume 2, Issue 1, 2003

Ideas about sustainability can be distilled into two primary strands: (a) the sustainable media environment in which communication technology is seen as a fundamental social and economic force, and (b) sustainable development in which community, self-sufficiency, and conservation are key partners associated with the focus on local conditions, including natural resources, politics, features of the community, and quality of life. The problem is that the two perspectives are seldom linked, but must be if 21st century sustainability is to be achieved. Media environment and community are inextricably bound.

The symbolic role of mobile phones and smoking in modern adolescent cultures needs to be studied.

Levinson, Paul. The Soft Edge:A Natural History and Future of the Information Revolution. New York: Routledge, 1998.264 pp. Cloth $29.95, ISBN 0-415-15785-4. Paper $18.95, ISBN 0-415-19772-4.

Logan, Robert. The Sixth Language: Learning a Living in the Internet Age. Toronto, ON: Stoddart, 2000. 352 pp. Cloth $24.95, ISBN 0-773-76104-7.

Theall, Donald. The Virtual Marshall McLuhan. Montreal, PQ, and Kingston, ON: McGillQueen's University Press, 2001. 305 pp. Cloth $34.95, ISBN 0-7735-2119-4.