Media Ecology
Media Ecology "is the study of media environments, the idea that technology and techniques, modes of information and codes of communication play a leading role in human affairs. Media ecology is the Toronto School, and the New York School. It is media logic, medium theory, mediology. It is McLuhan Studies, orality-literacy studies, American cultural studies. It is grammar and rhetoric, semiotics and systems theory, the history and the philosophy of technology. It is the postindustrial and the postmodern, and the preliterate and prehistoric." - McLuhan
"Media ecology looks into the matter of how media of communication affect human perception, understanding feeling, and value; and how our interaction with media facilities or impedes our chances of survival. The word ecology implies the study of environments: their structure, content, and impact on people. An environment is, after all, a complex message system which imposes on human beings certain ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. It structures what we can see and say and, therefore, do. It assigns roles to us and insists on our playing them. It specifies what we are permitted to do and what we are not. Sometimes, as in the case of a courtroom, or classroom, or business office, the specifications are explicit and formal. In the case of media environments, the specifications are more often implicit and informal, half concealed by our assumption that what we are dealing with is not an environment but merely a machine. Media ecology tries to make these specifications explicit. It tries to find out what roles media force us to play, how media structure what we are seeing, why media makes us feel and act as we do. Media ecology is the study of media as environments." - Neil Postman
It is, by now, almost a commonplace to remark that the 20th Century is an era of change, of change unprecedented in its scope, its pace, and its potential for violent effects on the fabric of civilisation. For Kenneth Boulding, the changes which have taken place since 1900 are of such enormous significance that he marks the 20th Century as the turning point in what he calls "the second great transition in the history of mankind" - that is, the transition from "civilisation" to "post-civilisation". According to Boulding, the impetus for that transition is provided by a radical shift in what he calls a man's "image" of reality. Thomas Kuhn refers to the same kind of radical shift as a revolution in paradigms; Pierre Teilhard de Chardin calls it a change in the noosphere; Ervin Laszlo, Ludwig von Bertalanffy, and others call it simply a shift in man's world view. What each is referring to is an epochal change in the status, organisation, and application of knowledge. One of the consequences of the change to which Boulding and others refer, or, better perhaps, one of its hallmarks, is a movement away from the rigidly compartmentalised, uncoordinated specialisation in scientific inquiry which characterised the Newtonian world, and a movement toward increasing integration of both the physical and the social sciences. One of the symptoms of this trend is the proliferation, in recent years, of "compound" disciplines such as mathematical biochemistry, psychobiology, linguistic anthropology, psycholinguistics, and so on.
"Media ecology looks into the matter of how media of communication affect human perception, understanding feeling, and value; and how our interaction with media facilities or impedes our chances of survival. The word ecology implies the study of environments: their structure, content, and impact on people. An environment is, after all, a complex message system which imposes on human beings certain ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. It structures what we can see and say and, therefore, do. It assigns roles to us and insists on our playing them. It specifies what we are permitted to do and what we are not. Sometimes, as in the case of a courtroom, or classroom, or business office, the specifications are explicit and formal. In the case of media environments, the specifications are more often implicit and informal, half concealed by our assumption that what we are dealing with is not an environment but merely a machine. Media ecology tries to make these specifications explicit. It tries to find out what roles media force us to play, how media structure what we are seeing, why media makes us feel and act as we do. Media ecology is the study of media as environments." - Neil Postman
It is, by now, almost a commonplace to remark that the 20th Century is an era of change, of change unprecedented in its scope, its pace, and its potential for violent effects on the fabric of civilisation. For Kenneth Boulding, the changes which have taken place since 1900 are of such enormous significance that he marks the 20th Century as the turning point in what he calls "the second great transition in the history of mankind" - that is, the transition from "civilisation" to "post-civilisation". According to Boulding, the impetus for that transition is provided by a radical shift in what he calls a man's "image" of reality. Thomas Kuhn refers to the same kind of radical shift as a revolution in paradigms; Pierre Teilhard de Chardin calls it a change in the noosphere; Ervin Laszlo, Ludwig von Bertalanffy, and others call it simply a shift in man's world view. What each is referring to is an epochal change in the status, organisation, and application of knowledge. One of the consequences of the change to which Boulding and others refer, or, better perhaps, one of its hallmarks, is a movement away from the rigidly compartmentalised, uncoordinated specialisation in scientific inquiry which characterised the Newtonian world, and a movement toward increasing integration of both the physical and the social sciences. One of the symptoms of this trend is the proliferation, in recent years, of "compound" disciplines such as mathematical biochemistry, psychobiology, linguistic anthropology, psycholinguistics, and so on.
Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980)
McLuhan was still a twenty year old undergrad at the University of Manitoba in western Canada during the dirty thirties, when he wrote in his diary that he would never become an academic. He was learning in spite of his professors, but he would become a professor of English in spite of himself. After Manitoba, graduate work at Cambridge University planted the seed for McLuhan's eventual move towards media analysis. Looking back at both his own Cambridge years and the longer history of the institution, he reflected that a principal aim of the faculty could be summarised as the training of perception, a phrase that aptly summarises his own aim throughout his career. He believes the Medium is the Message.
Hot Medium - Old Media: low in audience participation, fragmented audiences, detribalises audiences (no collective groups, excludes individuals. Typically the content of hot media is restricted to what the source offers at that specific time. Examples of hot media include radio and film because they engage one sense of the user to an extent that although the user's attention is focused on the content, their participation is minimal. Cool Medium - New Media: high in audience participation, holistic media, tribalises audiences, includes, collapses space, creates vertical associations. Audiences then participate more in cool mediums because they are required to perceive the gaps in the content themselves. The user must be familiar with genre conventions in order to fully understand the medium. |
Neil Postman (1931-2003)
Also agrees that medium is the message. Borrowing from McLuhan, he explained that every medium - TV, radio, typography, oral transmission - changes and biases the message itself. The written word, for examples, tends to bias the message towards linear thinking, logic exposition, and the delayed response. Video tends to bias towards the "peek a boo world": trivial content that vanishes in seconds, constantly flickering images, yet the viewer has a hard time turning away no matter the subject... because the medium is just too entertaining and engrossing. These biases mean that news from a newspaper and a television, even with the same subject, have two different messages.
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Example Question
"New Media will eventually replace traditional media". To what extent do you agree with this statement? You should refer to at least two media forms in your answer.
To answer this question, the answer must be informed, rather than just answering the question with vague references to existing media. This can include detailed answers such as developing how traditional media such as newspapers and radio played a large role in previous time periods, and how newer media such as social media play much larger roles in today's society.
To answer this question, the answer must be informed, rather than just answering the question with vague references to existing media. This can include detailed answers such as developing how traditional media such as newspapers and radio played a large role in previous time periods, and how newer media such as social media play much larger roles in today's society.
Medium is the Message
- Media structures people and the society
- Following the introduction of electronic items, media has had a larger hold on society
- Media changes the environment which one lives in
- Media changes how people act towards others
- The actual media is not really relevant, rather, how you react to it is
- Nothing happens without a cause or a reason
- Media such as television is only as sterile as the viewer deems it
- The viewer is groomed into engaging and participating with the media
- McLuhan's theory received a wide variety of opinions and reactions, with some agreeing and some rejecting his idea
- The idea of hot medium is compared with scholars and other outlets that appeal to a niche demographic
- The idea of cold medium is compared to media outlets like radio and TV which appeal to a wide audience
- The physical state of an environment determines how much influence media has over it
- Global Village: the idea of how media has changed people from listening to radios together to listening in private
- The rise of electronic media has been changing our society rapidly
- Global village is essentially the massive involvement with everyone's livelihood (this can be seen in reality TV)
- National groups, family groups etc. all become open to everyone else due to the rise of media in everything
- What was formerly private life is now corporate life
- Education becomes dated if it doesn't keep up with the rise of media in society
- There are various psychological, ethical, environmental effects to the rise of media
- Practically every part of a person is affected by media
- Even the change of TV from black and white to colour had effects on people
- Media such as art is one of the few exceptions that always stays in the present
- Media affects both the active and inactive audience
- McLuhan essentially sees a high level of problematic consequences to exposing an active audience to media
- McLuhan states that we are living in the informational age
- Clothing, comedy, and other genres of media outlets, all have affects on one's identity
- Media makes everyone seek for a meaningful form of identification
- It encourages mass participation
- McLuhan views JFK's funeral as one of the largest examples of mass participation
- JFK's funeral was one of the most prominent examples of how global villages worked
- McLuhan sees that bad news greatly out-proportions that of good news, as bad news encourages more participation
- He compares the rise of media to planes, as planes essentially render roads useless
- Hot media constantly refers to the past, which McLuhan regards as an incomplete form of media participation
- Propaganda and other forms of indoctrinations are a major aspect of media participation
- "Cool is involving, hot is not"
- McLuhan argues that shouting fire will acquire more attention that shouting help, as shouting for help means that people are directly being ordered to interact, whereas shouting fire acts as an attracting incentive for people to come.
Ecology is a branch of biology concerning interactions among organisms and their biophysical environment, which includes both biotic abiotic components. Media interfaces are the point at which interaction occurs. The most obvious form of this is human interaction with a Media Interface- such as Instagram, Facebook, or the News. Pubs put in TVs in their establishments to make it more social. Less passive audiences. Media such as the Wii had an effect, especially with Wii Fit, which increased exercising. No more gym memberships even though children are the target demographic for the WII. Co-Evolution infers that media and humans are evolving in unison with one another. This supposedly happens in two ways:
The ‘Ages’ of Media
Was developed by Marshall McLuhan. Included eras such as:
Global Village
Kenneth Boulding
Neil Postman’s Six Questions
In his 1999 Book ‘Building a Bridge to the 18th Century’, Postman theorised that we should study the ethical implications of new media forms. To assist with this he proposed the following questions:
Exemplar Questions
- Human-Media Co-Evolution
- Media-Media Co-Evolution
The ‘Ages’ of Media
Was developed by Marshall McLuhan. Included eras such as:
- Tribal Age - The ear was the dominant sensory organ as a result groups would hear messages at the same time, creating a strong community.
- Literacy Age - The eye becomes the dominant sensory organ. Messages could be consumed multiple times.
- Print Age - The mass production of Media begins thanks to the printing press. Media can now be distributed far and wide.
- Electronic Age - The instant transmission of information begins. The isolation created in the literacy age is broken. Concept of global village is created
Global Village
- Coined by McLuhan in 1962
- His concept is that as technology advanced communication barriers will break down and influence from available information
Kenneth Boulding
- Developments since the 1900s have been so significant that the 20th Century is “The second great transition in the history of mankind”
- He called this the transition from civilisation to civilisation, this is due to a sift in what he refers to a man's image of reality
Neil Postman’s Six Questions
In his 1999 Book ‘Building a Bridge to the 18th Century’, Postman theorised that we should study the ethical implications of new media forms. To assist with this he proposed the following questions:
- What is the problem to which technology is the solution?
- Whose problem is it?
- Which people and what institutions might be most seriously harmed by the technological solution
- What new problems might be created because we have solved this problem
- What sort of people and institutions might acquire special economic and political power because of technological change?
- What changes in language are being enforced by new technologies and what is being gained and lost by such changes.
Exemplar Questions
- “The media evolves according to the needs of its audiences” To what extent do you agree with this statement? You should refer to at least two media forms in your answer
- “Media consumer behaviour is affected by the introduction of new media forms” To what extent do you agree with this statement? You should refer to at least two media forms in your answer
- “Media consumers perceive new media differently to traditional media” To what extent do you agree with this statement? You should refer to at least two media forms in your answer
- “The rate of development of new media forms has remained consistent through history” To what extent do you agree with this statement? You should refer to at least two media forms in your answer
End of Audience Theory: Clay Shirky
What is the theory
So overall?
Overall, the theory looks at how media has evolved to a fast and immediate network that allows us to create our own media as well as share what we see.
- Consumption = the act of using resources, goods or a service
- Technological convergence = technology advancing, merging and integrating
- Prosumer = a producer/consumer or a technological proliferation and convergence has enabled consumers to be content producers
What is the theory
- For the first time young audience are watching less tv due to the fast interaction media they’ve become exposed to
- The most important part of networking is our access to each other; social media allows us to be connected to each other
- Social media allows us to not only share media but create it, the lack of quality in lots of posts allows us to make it quickly and share it quickly as well, the fact that it is only popular for a short amount of time doesn't matter as the product took such a short amount of time to make.
- Shirky identifies this through the phrase ‘you can play this game too’
- If you buy the means of consumption you can also own the means of production
- We have balanced the skill of sharing and consuming and connecting with one another
- Media has become a cheap and globally available tool for online sharing
So overall?
Overall, the theory looks at how media has evolved to a fast and immediate network that allows us to create our own media as well as share what we see.
The Long Tail Theory - Chris Anderson
The internet marketplace allows companies to produce and sell a far wider range of products than ever before. This profoundly changes both consumer behaviour and business strategy. The theory essentially states, that if you add up all of the revenue from Niche market films, the profit can be greater than or equal to the profit from one blockbuster or bestselling product. Online shopping/sharing makes it easy to cater to niche markets.
Convergence Theory, Participatory Culture Theory, and Collective Intelligence Theory - Henry Jenkins
Convergence Theory
"By Convergence, I mean the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation of multiple media industries, and the migratory behaviour of media audiences". According to Henry Jenkins, Convergence Theory essentially puts forward the idea that new technologies bring together different mediums and consequentially redefine the media environment. The best examples of media convergence are utilities such as smartphones or laptops, which combine multiple different types of digital media such as radio, camera, TV, music, and other forms of content onto a single device.
Participatory Culture Theory
"In this emerging media system... consumers are transformed into participants who are expected to interact with each other... each of us constructs our own personal mythology from bits and fragments of information we have extracted from the ongoing flow of media around us and transformed into resources through which we make sense of our everyday lives". Examples of participatory culture include:
Collective Intelligence Theory
"Because there is more information out there... than we can store in our heads, there is an added incentive for us to talk amongst ourselves about the media we consume... consumptions has become a collective process... None of us can know everything; each of us knows something; we can put the pieces together if we pool our resources... Collective intelligence can be seen as an alternative source of media power". Anyone who has access to the internet can contribute to distributing their knowledge over the world through specialised information sites, such as Wikipedia.
"By Convergence, I mean the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation of multiple media industries, and the migratory behaviour of media audiences". According to Henry Jenkins, Convergence Theory essentially puts forward the idea that new technologies bring together different mediums and consequentially redefine the media environment. The best examples of media convergence are utilities such as smartphones or laptops, which combine multiple different types of digital media such as radio, camera, TV, music, and other forms of content onto a single device.
Participatory Culture Theory
"In this emerging media system... consumers are transformed into participants who are expected to interact with each other... each of us constructs our own personal mythology from bits and fragments of information we have extracted from the ongoing flow of media around us and transformed into resources through which we make sense of our everyday lives". Examples of participatory culture include:
- Affiliations, memberships in online communities centred around various forms of media
- Expressions, producing new creative forms such as digital sampling, video making, and mashups
- Collaborations, problem-solving and working together in teams to complete tasks and develop new knowledge
- Circulations, shaping the flow of media through e.g. podcasting, micro-blogging
Collective Intelligence Theory
"Because there is more information out there... than we can store in our heads, there is an added incentive for us to talk amongst ourselves about the media we consume... consumptions has become a collective process... None of us can know everything; each of us knows something; we can put the pieces together if we pool our resources... Collective intelligence can be seen as an alternative source of media power". Anyone who has access to the internet can contribute to distributing their knowledge over the world through specialised information sites, such as Wikipedia.
Technological Convergence
The importance of technological convergence for institutions and audiences
Old technologies
New technologies
Web 2.0
Web 3.0
Generally, Web 3.0 is thought to have the following 5 characteristics:
Key takeaways
The internet evolved over the second half of the 20th century. In 1993 the internet made up 1% of the global communication landscape. By 2000 it went up to 51%, and more than 97% of the
telecommunicated information by 2007. Web 1.0 entered the communication field in the '90s as the 'read-only web.' You could only search for websites and read them. The apparition of Facebook in 2004 is the milestone where the transition from web 1.0 to web 2.0 is quite clear. In the 'read-write web,' users are able to write content on a website, not only read it.
Web 3.0 is the next step in the evolution of the internet and is thought to come soon. Its core characteristics are Semantic Web, Artificial Intelligence, 3D Graphics, Connectivity, and Ubiquity. The blockchain community is envisioning a web 3.0 which has the 5 characteristics mentioned above, but more importantly, is a decentralised peer-to-peer network. The 'decentralised web' employs the power of blockchain technology to dissolve the need for
centralised operators, working only with immutable encrypted data.
What you need to consider:
How does technological convergence affect the ways that audiences consume films?
What are the implications of technological convergence for major film studios?
What are the implications of technological convergence for indie film companies?
Which audience demographics are institutions likely to target using technological convergence strategies?
POSSIBLE QUESTIONS
New Media will eventually replace traditional media.’ To what extent do you agree with this statement? You should refer to at least two media forms in your answer
To what extent does technological convergence impact how society communicates
Explain the ways the changing nature of media ownership in new media impacts society
- Technological convergence refers to the trend of different technologies merging into new ones, bringing together a range of media
- Technological convergence is significant as it opens up new markets for film consumption
- Technological convergence refers to the process where new technology is moving towards single platforms delivering multiple media outputs that can be used to reach audiences, for example, a PS3’s primary function is video gaming but you can download and watch movies from Lovefilm.com on it, and also watch catch up TV and music videos
- Technological: technologies, digital devices/media
- Convergence: Coming together
Old technologies
- Historically, most technologies have only handled one medium, meaning devices were limited in their purpose
- Record players, tape decks, and CD players are devices that have been specifically designed for projecting music only
- A television set was only designed to broadcast moving images and sound
New technologies
- Through technological convergence, devices are now able to interact with a wide array of media. Different technologies have converged into single devices.
- The mobile phone is a great example
- Smart phones offer the functionality of personal music players, digital cameras, text messenger/email systems and internet access as well
Web 2.0
- Web 2.0 has played a large part in this convergence for institutions and audiences
- Web 1.0 websites are non-interactive where users are limited to the passive viewing of information (one way flow of info). Web 2.0 websites allow users to interact with other users or change website content (two way flow of information).
- Social media sites such as twitter and Facebook allow readers to interact with film in so many different ways that were not available during web 1.0. Other Web 2.0 features include web communities, video sharing and blogs
Web 3.0
Generally, Web 3.0 is thought to have the following 5 characteristics:
- Semantic Web - Web 3.0 goes beyond focusing on keywords and numeric values so that it understands content like photo, video, or audio, and more complex associations between products, locations and specific behaviour
- Artificial intelligence - Artificial intelligence software is able to decrypt natural language and understand intention. It can also recognise real from fake and provide more reliable data
- 3D Graphics - The third generation of the internet should integrate the use of 3D Graphics and VR technologies to provide results regarding real-life places, diverse products and objects of interest
- Connectivity - Within Web 3.0, information is more connected through semantic metadata, leveraging all the available information
- Ubiquity - Data silos are eliminated. Every device should be connected to the network and content operable by different applications
Key takeaways
The internet evolved over the second half of the 20th century. In 1993 the internet made up 1% of the global communication landscape. By 2000 it went up to 51%, and more than 97% of the
telecommunicated information by 2007. Web 1.0 entered the communication field in the '90s as the 'read-only web.' You could only search for websites and read them. The apparition of Facebook in 2004 is the milestone where the transition from web 1.0 to web 2.0 is quite clear. In the 'read-write web,' users are able to write content on a website, not only read it.
Web 3.0 is the next step in the evolution of the internet and is thought to come soon. Its core characteristics are Semantic Web, Artificial Intelligence, 3D Graphics, Connectivity, and Ubiquity. The blockchain community is envisioning a web 3.0 which has the 5 characteristics mentioned above, but more importantly, is a decentralised peer-to-peer network. The 'decentralised web' employs the power of blockchain technology to dissolve the need for
centralised operators, working only with immutable encrypted data.
What you need to consider:
How does technological convergence affect the ways that audiences consume films?
What are the implications of technological convergence for major film studios?
What are the implications of technological convergence for indie film companies?
Which audience demographics are institutions likely to target using technological convergence strategies?
POSSIBLE QUESTIONS
New Media will eventually replace traditional media.’ To what extent do you agree with this statement? You should refer to at least two media forms in your answer
To what extent does technological convergence impact how society communicates
Explain the ways the changing nature of media ownership in new media impacts society