2.1 Synchronous Lecture

Media Ecology definition in lecture

Refers to the study of media; any human-made technologies as environments. each medium/technology enacts a unique complex of effects and side effects on our socio-cultural and political system

Neil Postman’s Principles of Technology

1. All technological change is a Faustian bargain (a trade-off)

2. The advantages and disadvantages of new technologies are never distributed evenly among the population

3. Embedded in every technology there is a powerful idea, sometimes two or three powerful ideas (a philosophy shaping perception and thought)

4. A new technology usually makes war against an old technology. It competes with it for time, attention, money, prestige, and a “worldview.” (It doesn’t just coexist)

5. “Technological change is not additive, it is ecological” (It reshapes the entire system, not just one part)

What did Lance Straight write about technology?

“Technology cannot be neutral, because….it has an inherent bias based on the properties of its materials and methods.”

What is something about a technology’s bias?

A technology’s bias makes them useful. Every technology enhances or amplifies something for us in a particular or biased way.

Media Ecologists ask: what human capacities does a technology amplify, extend, or enhance, i.e., what are its positive effects?

For example, a calculator would help with accurate, fast calculations. It would increase efficiency when doing math.

Media Ecologists ask: what human capacities does a technology reduce, diminish, or inhibit, i.e., what are its negative side-effects?

For example, a calculator would hinder one’s mental math abilities because it isn’t practiced as much

What do Media Ecologist aim to discern about a technology’s “biases??

Its effect and unanticipated side effects.

Another question could be: how can any undesirable side-effects of using this technology be counterbalanced

What did Marshal McLuhan’s studies into the effects of advertising and print media evolve into?

The discipline of media studies and media ecology.

Which phrases did McLuhan coin?

• “The global village”

• “The medium is the message”

What does “the medium is the massege” mean?

Specific content or the explicit message that is conveyed through the given medium or technology is for media ecologists of secondary concern compared to the pattern of thinking/being, and doing that is mobilized by the medium.

Simply put, a given technology or medium’s message is how it effects us in our environment

For example, the difference between reading vs listening to a podcast about an article shape, in multiple ways the message that we get.

Heidegger’s Philosophy of Technology

• Being-in-the-World — corresponds to us as subjects

• “Being for Indigenous thought is something that is not controllable as a whole by the human self, and [Heidegger] goes on to argue that the Western Platonic tradition emphasized Being only as equatable wit a concept, not as the actual disclosure of the world mystery.”

Relational Ontology (a branch of philosophy that studies existence)

Perspective that views existence as fundamentally interconnected—meaning that entities do not exist independently but are defined by their relationships

• Central to Indigenous Knowledge

A human being is a “Being-in-the-World”

The human being is not an independent autonomous subject that is familiar to Western ontology, but a being who is intimately linked to a continuous relationship to the world.

Our world of “equipment”: “Present-at-Hand”

When a tool stops functioning properly (or if it behave unexpectedly or if we are inspecting it), making us consciously aware of it as an object.

Ex. A broken pen that no longer writes forces us to recognize it as an independent thing

Our world of “equipment”: “Ready-to-Hand”

When a tool is seamlessly integrated into use; it is part of our actions and not consciously noticed.

Ex. A teacher using a pen without thinking about it

Law of the Instrument or “Maslow’s Hammer”

When we develop a ready-to-hand reliance on a tool, some kind of perceptual or cognitive bias sets in.

• “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”

• relates to McLuhan’s 4th law of media

TPACK’s Arc of Transparency & the “Hidden Curriculum”

A concept in the TPACK framework that describes how a teacher’s use of technology evolves over time. It refers to how technology moves from being the focus of attention to becoming an invisible, integrated part of teaching and learning

• We don’t even think about it as a technology (we have forgotten that desks and chairs are technologies)

• TPACK→PCK

• Once the technology is fully integrated, we don’t really think about the technological knowledge of TPACK because now we’re back to pedagogical knowledge and content knowledge

• This is why we need tools like McLuhan’s Laws because once technology becomes part of the furniture like that, we no longer have critical oversight about it