The Ecomedia/sphere: Technology as Ecomedia
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Various academic disciplines are undergoing enormous conceptual turns that are shifting discussions about technology and media. The first is a turn to the Anthropocene, which recognizes how our current geological epoch is being transformed by human activity, largely driven by anthropocentric technology designed to improve the human condition while at the same time disregarding its impact on living systems. The second turn is towards the material, which refocuses our attention on the material conditions of media, technology and reality. For this presentation, I focus on how the emerging concept of ecomedia combines both of these turns to recalibrate how we approach media studies and technology from an ecocentric perspective. Drawing on a novel analytical framework called the “ecomediasphere,” the presentation demonstrates how technological gadgets can be reconceptualized as boundary objects that impact a variety of “ecomediatones,” such as culture, political economy, materiality and lifeworld. This framework updates the “circuit of culture” approach to technology developed by cultural studies by applying an ecocritical critique to media technology, society and culture.
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The Ecomedia/sphere: Technology as Ecomedia
- 1. The Ecomedia/sphere: Technology as Ecomedia Antonio López, PhD Chair & Associate Professor John Cabot University What is Technology? Portland, OR 2019 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial- ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
- 2. Media ecosystem approach Medium grows culture • Medium is a carrier of something (a mixture of nutrients “needed for growth”) • Human society is an organism that depends on nutrients for growth • Media ecology: society is shaped by medium of communication i.e. print or internet • Media environments grow culture • Internet is “growing” something new, but to what effect? “Blogging and the media ecosystem,” John Naughton (2006)
- 3. Media ecosystem approach Some media ecosystems • World-ecology: capitalism is an ecosystem • “Facebook ecosystem” “iPhone ecosystem” • “News ecosystem” • Regional media ecosystems (i.e. Italy, Europe, Hong Kong, China, globe, etc.) Media as ecosystems Media ecosystem is the relationship between the media environment and its members Like ecology, smaller ecosystems are embedded in larger ecosystems New technologies, events, members can “disturb” system, change it
- 4. Ecomedia system: ecological footprint
- 6. Related/subfields • Green cultural studies • Ecocriticism • Ecolinguistics • Ecocinema • Media ecology • Environmental communication • Environmental humanities • Postcolonial ecocriticism • Mediamaterialism/ecomaterialism/infrastructure studies • Affective ecology • Slow media Ecomedia: Key Issues (Rust et al) Three key themes: • Representation • Communication • Materiality Ecomedia—“the intermediation of everything” (Cubitt, Sustainable Media, p. 166) Ecomedia reframes media as ecological media. There are no media that are inseparable from the material conditions of the environment that produced them.
- 7. Environmental ideology and ethics “Carmanah Contrast,” Robert Bateman, 1989 Source: http://robertbateman.ca/paintings/89-04CarmanahContrast.html
- 8. Environmental Ideology “…a way of thinking about the natural world that a person uses to justify actions towards it.” Corbett p. 26 Ecological Ethics “how human beings ought to behave in relation to non-human nature” Curry, 2006, p. 47
- 10. Anthropocentric Ecocentric “dark green”“light green” “mid-green”“brown” From: Julia Corbett, Communicating Nature (2006)
- 11. Ecomedia/sphere
- 12. World (mental model/ideology/world system) Earth (physical ecosystem/Earth system) Political eco/nomyCulture Lifeworld Ecomaterialism Ecomediasphere Cultural productionSymbolic order Materials extraction, manufacture, production Physical ecosystems EmbodiednessAffect/ Sensory experience Bioculture/languaculture Time/space Affective pop culture Medium properties “Sphere” but web-like Defamiliarize w/ new language Heuristic Orientation tool discourses
- 14. Necker cube Image source: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/philosophy-of-technology/0/steps/26324 Don Ihde: “multistability”; technology are only what they are in use
- 15. Political (eco)nomy(Eco)culture Lifeworld (Eco)materialism Ecomediasphere Boundary object/ system-to-think- with “Resource media” Scales between Media object and Hyper-objects Media commons Media Object Types of media objects
- 16. Ecomediasphere Four “scapes” of media commons Ecoculture Media-centric/qualitative (text and meanings) Text and discourse analysis of media texts; mapping cultural behaviors and attitudes Political Economy Socio-centric/quantitative (social forces) Ideological structure of the global economics system; political economy of media Ecomaterialism Ecology and environmental studies, material infrastructure The material conditions of media and environment, including extraction, production, e-waste, energy and emissions; medium properties Lifeworld Phenomenology, reception studies, media ecology Media’s sensory affect and impact on our perception of time, space and place; sensory responses; cognitive dispositions
- 17. World (mental models/ideology/world system) Earth (physical ecosystem/Earth system) Ecomediasphere Socioenvironmental realms: World System/ Earth System Spheres Commons/ Enclosure Biosphere Ecosphere Ethnosphere Semiosphere Technosphere Ecomediasphere
- 18. World (mental model/ideology/world system) Earth (physical ecosystem/Earth system) Political economyEcoculture Lifeworld Ecomaterialism Ecomediasphere Ecologies of interconnected networks Mental ecology Political/social ecologyCultural ecology Physical ecology
- 19. Political economy Ecoculture Lifeworld Ecomaterialism Ecomediasphere Emerging disciplines of ecomedia Affective ecology Media materialism Flow/materials ecology Eco-materialism Green cultural/media studies Ecocriticism Ecofeminism Post-colonial ecocriticism Environmental communication Media archeology Media infrastructure Ecomedia studies Ecocinema studies Media ecology Ecolinguistics
- 20. World (mental model/ideology/world system) Earth (physical ecosystem/Earth system) Political economyEcoculture Lifeworld Ecomaterialism Ecomediasphere Boundary work Ecomediatones (ecotone, edge ecology) Cultural productionSymbolic order Materials extraction, manufacture, production Physical ecosystems EmbodiednessAffect/ Sensory exp. Bioculture/languaculture Time/space Affective pop culture Medium properties Ideology Anthrop. vs Eco discourses
- 21. Political Eco/nomy Ecoculture Lifeworld Ecomaterialism Gadget Cognitive dispositions Emotions Medium properties Material reality Political and economic forces Social and cultural practices Beliefs Ideology/Cosmology Affordances/constraints Beliefs Platform design Political economy • Carbon-capitalism • “Oilygarchy” • “Deep media” • Advertising • Consumerism • Attention economy (legacy and social media) • Surveillance capitalism • Extractivism, externalization • Platform capitalism • Planned obsolescence • Neocolonialism/globalization • Amazon, Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft • “Appconn”/”Chimerica” Ecoculture (beliefs) • Values/eco-ethics • Anthropocentric vs. ecocentric • Consumerism • Racism, sexism • Egalitarianism • Language frames/discourses • Green cultural citizenship Ecomaterialism (affordances/constraints) • Shareability/spreadability • Algorithms • Interacive • E-waste • Emissions • EMFs Lifeworld (cognitive dispositions) • Selective exposure, confirmation bias, reality maintenance, screen addiction, etc. • Addiction, attention • Emotional response, alienation, sense of place • Affect Labor practices
- 22. Political Eco/nomy Eculture Lifeworld Ecomaterialism Fake Climate News Cognitive dispositions Emotions Medium properties Material reality Political and economic forces Social and cultural practices Beliefs Ideology Affordances/constraints Beliefs Platform design Political eco/nomy • Carbon- and consumer- based capitalism • Attention economy (legacy and social media) • Far-right media ecosystem • Platform capitalism Ecoculture (beliefs) • Values (white-nationalist, conservative, liberal, green, radical) • Anthropocentric vs. ecocentric • Language frames/discourses • “Six Americas” Ecomaterialism (affordances/constraints) • Shareability/spreadability • Algorithms • Interacive Lifeworld (cognitive dispositions) • Selective exposure, confirmation bias, reality maintenance, screen addiction, etc. • Emotional response • Affect
- 23. Political eco/nomyEcoculture Lifeworld Ecomaterialism Ecomedia/sphere Example ecomedia/ sphere analysis Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) Ecofeminist themes Biopolitics Ecoapocolypse Genre (car chase, post-apocalypse) Identities (gender) Cognitive response Affect of spectacle Violence Firstness Film as a global commodity Industrial characteristics of film production Film as a material object Environmental problems related to production Ideology Response of audience Film language Film critics, Rotten Tomatoes Ideology Sound, image
Hinweis der Redaktion
- Welcome and thanks for your interest in the pedagogical aspects of ecomedia. I’m Antonio Lopez and I’m recording this from my office in Rome, Italy. I’m suffering a bit from current environmental conditions, so please forgive me for sounding a bit stuffed up.
- Public policy is impacted by how environmental issues are framed in the media; and consumerism promoted by marketing drives environmental destruction.
- Which brings us to the ecomediasphere. In Greening Media Education I started to model this as the “media wheel” but I’m revising it to reflect a more holistic perspective that a sphere metaphor implies.
- OK, so here is the mediasphere. At first glance this probably looks very complex, but don’t worry. I will go through and methodically explore its different elements. A few things to note: Though I call it a sphere to imply that it should be thought of beyond two-dimensions, I also want to emphasize its web-like characteristic, In the sense that if you touch one part of it, it affects all the other parts. I also want to emphasize that this is a heuristic, it’s an orientation tool to think with.
- Th way it works is we start with the concept of a media object, which is like a boundary object. A boundary object is something that has commonly agreed upon characteristics but its meaning and purpose changes according to context. For example, a smartphone will have different purposes according to designers, manufacturers, users, app developers, experts, workers, and users. This is somewhat similar to the circuit of culture approach developed in cultural studies. A media object can be a media text, gadget or platform as exemplified on the right side of the slide.
- The sphere is divided into four lenses, inspired by Appadurai’s concept of scapes. Here I identify the four main scapes and their focus (read)
- It is also divided into two interconnected realms as conceptualized by socioenvironmental theorists: world system and earth system The world system is somewhat like the superstructure of the global economy The earth system is quite literally the physical and material characteristics of this system. I have also mapped various different “spheres” that can be thought of as layors, with the ecomediasphere as the mediating component between the ethnosphere/semiosphere and the biosphere/ecosphere
- Here I’m mapping how the mediasphere roughly corresponds with the concept of different ecologies as identified by Guattari in his Three Ecologies, although I have taken the liberty to transform them into four ecologies.
- Here I have tentatively mapped some of the emerging disciplines of ecomedia studies as the plot within the different spheres.
- Finally, I want to introduce the idea of doing boundary work between the different scapes. In landscape ecology, a transition zone between two biomes is an ecotone such as the between a field and a forest. In the mediasphere, an ecomediatone is a transition area between two scapes. So if you look at the space between dotted lines, you will see there are various different transition zones that combine elements of the adjacent scapes (read) As a class discussion you could debate whether or not these boundaries make sense.
- Th way it works is we start with the concept of a media object, which is like a boundary object. A boundary object is something that has commonly agreed upon characteristics but its meaning and purpose changes according to context. For example, a smartphone will have different purposes according to designers, manufacturers, users, app developers, experts, workers, and users. This is somewhat similar to the circuit of culture approach developed in cultural studies. A media object can be a media text, gadget or platform as exemplified on the right side of the slide.
- Th way it works is we start with the concept of a media object, which is like a boundary object. A boundary object is something that has commonly agreed upon characteristics but its meaning and purpose changes according to context. For example, a smartphone will have different purposes according to designers, manufacturers, users, app developers, experts, workers, and users. This is somewhat similar to the circuit of culture approach developed in cultural studies. A media object can be a media text, gadget or platform as exemplified on the right side of the slide.
- So how does this come together as an analytical project? If we take the media object of Mad Max: Fury Road, we can examine it from the perspective of the different scapes. (read)