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  5. Volume 23, Issue 1, 2024

Explorations in Media Ecology - Volume 23, Issue 1, 2024

Volume 23, Issue 1

Volume 23, Issue 1, 2024

Language: English
  • Articles

      • A media ecology perspective on psychedelics

        https://doi.org/10.1386/eme_00188_1

        Psychedelic drugs present an intriguing variation on the widely circulated maxim that the medium is the message. Psychedelics are commonly defined as without intrinsic effects, and their effects are described as crucially dependent on internal and external contexts (commonly referred to as ). Psychedelics can therefore be understood as a medium defined by its exceptional pliability and amenability to contextual cues. It thus follows that the effects of psychedelics as a medium are crucially embedded and shaped by their surrounding media. This article observes the intriguing implications and surprising benefits that emerge when examining psychedelics and media ecology in conjunction. It points to ways in which media ecology may enrich our understanding of psychedelics and their effects and to ways in which psychedelics may serve to enhance media ecological literacy and provide a new experimental space for explorations in media ecology.

    • High highs, low lows: Artists and anti-environments in the twenty-first century

      https://doi.org/10.1386/eme_00189_1

      From antiquity to contemporary times, artists have served as society’s defence against unbridled technological adoption. As stressed by Marshall McLuhan, artists are those individuals who aid society in understanding the conditions of our time. In literate times the poet and the painter assumed such responsibilities, but in the digital era the artist becomes something altogether different. McLuhan defined the artists broadly as an individual in any field who was able to provide insightful information into the human actions and consciousness of their time. Similarly, Paglia argued analysts must combine ‘high with popular art, the noble with the sleazy’ (1991: 34). Thus, we are left with two pressing questions: who are the artists of the millennium? Can they still save us? The following article sought to trace who we should be considered artists in the twenty-first century and exactly what they have accomplished, or failed to accomplish, in making society aware of shifting sense ratios. Though Benjamin (1969) might bemoan the obsolescence of authenticity and aura in art, Paglia astutely points out the ‘popular culture reclaims what high culture shuts out’ (1991: 34). Therefore, a survey of both high and popular art will probe the abilities and limits of artists and their art to make society aware of the effects of technological change.

    • Celebrating and extending the literary roots of media ecology: Spiralling forward and upward in our times

      https://doi.org/10.1386/eme_00190_1

      Many in recent years have been seeking solace and illumination due to trying circumstances by various means including reading. McLuhan’s broad pursuits in literature and into other written materials played an important part in the origins of media studies. This article reviews various sources to confirm as well as advocate further celebration and extension of these literary roots. Moreover, it highlights a recent translation of Machado de Assis’s classic Brazilian novel as a gateway to increased use of world literature and other diverse sources. To advance McLuhan’s and other foundational works, those involved with media ecology should consider incorporating different recently available fiction and non-fiction more extensively. Such a widening of references could help broaden perspectives, foster additional insights, and help in spiralling the field forward and upward in our times.

  • Probes

      • Rethinking the three origin stories for communication studies in North America

        https://doi.org/10.1386/eme_00191_7

        There are three origin stories for communication studies in North America: the Public Speaking tradition in the United States, the Mass Communication tradition in the United States, and the Media Ecology tradition rooted in Canadian scholarship. In this Probe, I want to talk about the three traditions, as I understand them. Then, I want to talk about some experiences surveying residents of rural Lake and Cook counties in Northeastern Minnesota about internet access. Those experiences pushed me to rethink the importance of the third, Canadian tradition of communication studies. This third tradition emphasizes the importance of the materiality of communication, and it is the tradition embraced by media ecology, and I think it asks questions that every communication scholar should think about.

  • Pedagogy

      • The case for starting with

        https://doi.org/10.1386/eme_00193_7

        This article builds a case for starting undergraduate media ecology education with reading Neil Postman’s . Postman’s work puts forward the important and fundamental precepts of media ecology and moves students to think about the connection between medium and content as well as media as environments. The text also illustrates a clear shift in media environments, another building block for understanding media ecology. Most central to the case of starting with this text is that Postman offers a critique of an older media environment, television, which students will find more rhetorically acceptable than criticism of our current digital media environment. Choosing to start with a criticism of an older medium creates space for media ecology pedagogy to thoroughly investigate other media environments.

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