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Explorations in Media Ecology - Volume 22, Issue 4, 2023

Volume 22, Issue 4

Volume 22, Issue 4, 2023

Language: English
  • Articles

      • High heels as mobile media: (Im)mobilities and feminist ecologies

        https://doi.org/10.1386/eme_00179_1

        This article critically explores the high heel as a mobile medium by discussing the contentious footwear through the lens of media ecology and mobilities research. Employing the McLuhans’ ‘laws of media’ or ‘tetrad’, I highlight what the high heel enhances, obsolesces, retrieves from the past and flips into when pushed to an extreme. This tetradic reading also draws on contemporary feminist media studies and a gender and media ecology subfield. Ultimately, the article shows to what extent the high heel is an ambiguous and divisive medium that extends the female and male body; shapes and is shaped by past and present cultural, social and political environments; and affords a range of physical, corporeal, social, imaginative and affective (im)mobilities.

    • Challenging key certainties in communication through Elleström’s medium-centred1 model of communication: ‘Transfer’ and ‘medium’

      https://doi.org/10.1386/eme_00180_1

      Communication has long been seen as an exchange of information, messages and/or meaning. According to Elleström’s medium-centred model of communication, communication is a process where cognitive imports from producer’s mind(s) are transferred to perceiver’s mind(s) through an intermediate stage/media product. It is here argued that, despite the fact that the latter model phenomenally adheres to the Saussurean ‘speech circuit’ paradigm, it also hints towards a reconsideration of the basics of communication. Through critically addressing the constants in the medium-centred model, and adopting as a point of entry that of the media product, most communication constants are challenged, while new emerge. Gibson’s ecology of perception (2015) and Féral’s theatricality of the gaze (2002) are introduced as catalysts in a discussion that attempts to systematize such considerable implications, addressing potential overlaps between perception, communication and mediation.

    • Smartphone distraction en masse in Mass

      https://doi.org/10.1386/eme_00181_1

      In light of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ 2021 decision to approve the use of a smartphone missal app, this article considers the effects of this new medium on Catholic worship. Relative to its long-standing predecessor – the paper-based missal – the new medium deserves analysis. As a faithful Catholic and media scholar, Marshall McLuhan is a fitting guide. McLuhan’s transformation theory reveals the fullness of communication by attending to the medium of communication and its transformation of persons and culture. McLuhan’s ideas on perception and media affirm current brain research on the effect of the smartphone – distraction. In contrast, research shows that a print-based medium fosters the opposite cognitive state – attentiveness. In the final analysis, this article reveals the essence of a distractive versus attentive medium in the context of Catholic worship.

  • Pedagogy

      • Synchronous online meets Hollywood Squares

        https://doi.org/10.1386/eme_00183_7

        This article explains a pedagogical approach designed for synchronous online classes. It is designed to encourage online presence and participation. Students are put into smaller non-interactive groups which take turns rotating into encouraged or required visibility (turning on their cameras), and higher expectations of participation. This rotation of ‘Hollywood Square celebrities’ for the day raises the level of discussion, clarifies when students are and are not ‘on the spot’, helps teachers gauge their own effectiveness by providing faces they can see, and adds interest and humanity to the online classroom.

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